Giacinto Scelsi Biography

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Biography Giacinto Scelsi

Giacinto Scelsi


Giacinto Scelsi (), Count of Ayala Valva (La Spezia, January 8, 1905 ? Rome, August 9, 1988), was an Italian composer, who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for writing music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his revolutionary Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola pieces each on a single note" (1959). His musical output, which encompasses all classical genres except for scenic music, remained largely undiscovered even within contemporary musical circles during most of his life, until a series of concerts in the mid to late 1980s finally premièred many of his pieces to great acclaim, notably his orchestral masterpieces in October 1987 in Cologne, about a quarter of a century after those works had been composed and less than a year before the composer's death (he was able to attend the premières and personally supervised the rehearsals). The impact caused by the late discovery of his works was described by Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich saying:Harry Halbreich, in the analytic commentaries published accompanying Jürg Wyttenbach's recordings of Scelsi's orchestral integrale by Accord.

Dutch musicologist Henk de Velde, alluding to Adorno speaking of Alban Berg, called Scelsi "the Master of the yet smaller transition", to which Harry Halbreich added that "in fact, his music is 'only transition".

Life

Born in Pitelli village of La Spezia, Scelsi studied music first in Rome, and later in Vienna with a disciple of Arnold Schönberg, and became one of the first adepts of dodecaphony in Italy. At the end of the 1940s, he underwent a profound religious crisis that led him to the discovery of Eastern spirituality and also to a radical transformation of his view of music. He rejected the notions of composition and author in favor of sheer improvisation.

Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher transcendent reality to the listener. From this point of view, the artist is considered a mere intermediator. It is for this reason that he never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music. He preferred instead to identify himself with a line under a circle, a symbol of Eastern provenance. Some photographs of Scelsi have emerged after his death.

Scelsi was a friend and a mentor to Alvin Curran and other expatriate American composers such as Frederic Rzewski who lived in Rome during the 1960s (Curran, 2003, in NewMusicBox). Scelsi also "conspired" with other American composers including John Cage, Morton Feldman and Earle Brown who visited him in Rome.

Alvin Curran recalled that: "Scelsi ... came to all my concerts in Rome even right up to the very last one I gave just a few days before he died.... This was in the summer time, and he was such a nut about being outdoors. He was there in a fur coat and a fur hat. It was an outdoor concert. He waved from a distance, beautiful sparking eyes and smile that he always had, and that's the last time I saw him." (Ross, 2005).

Scelsi died in Rome in 1988.

Works

See List of compositions by Giacinto Scelsi.


Selected discography

Accord / Universal-Musidisc

  • ?uvre intégrale pour choeur et orchestre symphonique (1. Aion - Pfhat - Konx-Om-Pax, 2. Quattro Pezzi - Anahit - Uaxuctum, 3. Hurqualia - Hymnos - Chukrum). Orchestre et ch?ur de la Radio-Télévision Polonaise de Cracovie, conducted by Jürg Wyttenbach (recorded 1988, 1989 and 1990; ref. 201692, 1992, 3 CDs: 1. ref. 200402, 1988 2. ref. 200612, 1989 3. ref. 201112, 1990; re-released by Universal-Musidisc in 2002)
  • Elegia per Ty - Divertimento nº3 pour violon - L?Âme ailée - L?Âme ouverte - Coelocanth - Trio à cordes. Zimansky, violin; Schiller, viola; Demenga, cello (ref. 200611, 1989)
  • Quattro illustrazioni - Xnoybis - Cinque incantesimi - Duo pour violon et violoncelle. Suzanne Fournier, piano; Carmen Fournier, violin; David Simpson, cello (ref. 200742, 1990)
  • Suite No.8 (Bot-Ba) - Suite No.9 (Ttai). Werner Bärtschi, piano (ref. 200802, 1990)
  • Intégrale des ?uvres chorales (Sauh III & IV - TKRDG - 3 Canti populari - 3 Canti sacri - 3 Latin Prayers - Yliam). New London Chamber Choir, Percussive Rotterdam, conducted by James Wood (ref. 206812)


Cpo

  • Chamber Works For Flute And Piano (Cpo 999340-2) played by Carin Levine, flutes, Kristi Becker, piano, Peter Veale, oboe, Edith Salmen, percussion, and Giacinto Scelsi, piano
  • The Complete Works For Clarinet (Cpo 999266-2) played by the Ensemble Avance, conducted by Zsolt Nagy, with David Smeyers, clarinets, and Susanne Mohr, flute


Kairos

  • Yamaon; Anahit; I presagi; Tre Pezzi; Okanagon (Kairos 1203) the Klangforum Wien conducted by Hans Zender
  • Streichquartett Nr. 4; Elohim; Duo; Anagamin; Maknongan; Natura renovatur (Kairos 1216) the Klangforum Wien conducted by Hans Zender
  • Action Music, Suite No 8 "bot-ba" (Kairos 1231) played on piano by Bernhard Wambach


Mode

  • The Piano Works 1 (Mode Records 92) played by Louise Bessette
  • The Orchestral Works 1 (Mode Records 95) Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic & Choir conducted by Juan Pablo Izquierdo, with Pauline Vaillancourt, soprano, and Douglas Ahlstedt, tenor
  • Music For High Winds (Mode Records 102) played by Carol Robinson, clarinets, Clara Novakova, flute and piccolo, Cathy Milliken, oboe
  • The Piano Works 2 (Mode Records 143) played by Stephen Clarke
  • The Piano Works 3 (Mode Records 159) played by Aki Takahashi
  • The Orchestral Works 2 (Mode Records 176) Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
  • The Works For Double Bass CD (Mode Records 188) played by Robert Black


Other labels

  • 5 string quartets, String trio, Khoom. Arditti String Quartet; Michiko Hirayama, voice; et al. (recorded 1988; Salabert Actuels, ref. 2SCD 8904-5; re-released by Montaigne / Naïve, ref. MO 782156, 2002; 2 CDs)
  • Trilogia (Triphon, Dithome, Igghur) - Ko-Tha. Frances-Marie Uitti, cello (Fore 80, No.6 [2]; Etcetera, KTC 1136 [3])
  • Intégrale de la musique de chambre pour orchestre a cordes (Natura renovatur, Anagamin, Ohoi, Elohim). Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, conducted by Jean-Paul Dessy (recorded May 1998; Forlane, ref. UCD16800, 2000)
  • Canti del Capricorno. Michiko Hirayama, voice; et al. (recorded 1969 & 1981/1982; Wergo, ref. WER 60127-50, 1988)
  • Complete Works For Flute And Clarinet (Col Legno 200350) played by the Ebony Duo
  • Trilogia (CTH 2480, together with A?k Havasi by Frangis Ali-Sade) played by Jessica Kuhn on violoncello
  • Natura renovatur (ECM 1963) Münchener Kammerorchester conducted by Christoph Poppen, Frances-Marie Uitti on violoncello


Sources



References



External links



1905 births1988 deaths20th century classical composersItalian composersPeople from Liguria

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacinto Scelsi
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