Giacinto Scelsi was born on January 8^th, 1905 to an aristocratic country family living near Naples in the south of Italy. Born a Count, he was later to marry a distant relative (named Dorothy but nicknamed Ty) of the English royal family. Their wedding reception took place at Buckingham palace. Early musical training was negligent and only in his late teens did music become available to him. His training was completely of the time. He studied with a pupil of Alban Berg in Vienna and a Scriabin follower in Switzerland. Influenced by the trends of this period, he was nevertheless fairly conservative in compositional style. He composed fugues, variations and was particularly intrigued by the possibilities of counterpoint and harmony.

After the Second World War was finished, Scelsi's wife left him and he returned to Italy, residing in Rome. His wife was never to contact him again. Perhaps this was a factor in his mental breakdown in 1948. Completing the work La nascita del verbo in 1947, he was to go through a four-year period of no composition and institutionalization in a mental hospital. Scelsi whose obession with the twelve-tone technique he blamed for his illness decided that the only solution was the repeated playing of a single note. He began repeatedly playing the same notes on his piano and this led him both out of his depression and into his second period of compositional period. Starting first with the piano in 1953, Scelsi later abandoned it in favour of orchestral instruments and voice. Coelocanth for solo viola dates from 1955. This three movement work's title is the name of a prehistoric fish that was presumed extinct but was found during that time in the depths of the Indian Ocean. The work is highly virtuosic, atonal and uses the harsh qualities of the instrument to create a dazzling work. The third movement marked Finale ends in a elegiac poststatement. There is a sense of descent here, perhaps evoking the fishes return to the depths in which it was pulled.

Violist - Christoph Schiller - Coelocanth

Shortly after this work was completed, Scelsi began to compose his Elegia per Ty, written for his estranged wife. There is no indication whether she had died at this time and indeed the actual date of composition remains a mystery itself. Though the catalogue indicates it was composed in 1958, it was not written down until 1966. This suggests either an error in the catalogue or that Scelsi had worked it out earlier and had not written it down. Scelsi, who would record his pieces and then notate them from the recordings, practiced this technique. Elegia per Ty is a three movement work for cello and viola. The work requires scordatura for the cello, this is the practice of tuning the strings on alternate pitches. In this case the cello must return his G string to an F in the first movement and the C string to a B-flat in the third. There is a sense of torture or excruciating pain in his work. Besides harmonics, the first movement is played entirely on the lower two strings of each instrument. The viola takes the lead in this piece, while the cello lurks below. The largest range in the entire work is a three and a half octaves. This is an extremely small range, especially for a piece with two instruments of different range. The instrumentalist is also called upon to perform strange performance techniques including col legno (the striking of the wood with the bow) as well as hitting the instrument and many microtonal elements.

Violist - Christoph Schiller - Elegia Per Ty

Cellist - Patrick Demenga

Scelsi's 1959 work Quattro Pezzi Per Orchestra is also marked by the same obsession with simplicity and the desire to return to the original pitch. This is no doubt his most famous work, I was able to find notes to this work from concerts last year throughout North America. The four movements are each based on a different central pitch.

Scelsi was also extremely interested in the mystical, particularly in eastern religions and in early spiritual practices of medieval and renaissance Europe. This attraction also spread to the music of Ockeghem and Busnois, both important and fairly radical composers during the Renaissance period of composition. The Canti del Capricorno was written for the Japanese singer Michiko Hirayama and uses several extended vocal techniques. There is, like in his earlier works, an obsession with individual pitch. The extended technique must have also included the ability to create harmonics with the voice, a technique employed by many ethnicities but is not particularly common amongst the italian vocalists! This performance by the French vocal ensemble Voxnova is particularly breathtaking. The recording, combining music from the Medieval and Renaissance period with works by Scelsi exhibits the stylistic similarities between these composers.

Voxnova - Canti del Capricorno

Scelsi also wrote a number of works for full orchestral setting. Konx-Om-Pax is a work from 1969 set for full orchestra without flutes. The title is derived from the word Peace as expressed in four languages, old Assyrian, in Sanskrit and in Latin. The work is divided into three movements, the first and last extend over seven minutes while the middle movement is under two. Scelsi's orchestral sound is one of horror, like a building catastrophe. There is something inevitably threatening in his sound. The short middle movement functions as a cleanser, full of harsh sounds and seems violent. In the last movement, the chorus enters repeating the syllable Om. This repetition, signifying the need for peace is described as an example of humanity's union with the cosmos. There is a feeling of great width in his music. There is a threatening dissonance but also a very beautiful and liberating sense of calm.

Orchestre de la Radio-télévision de Cracovie

Choeur de la Philharmonie de Cracovie - cond. Jürg Wyttenbach - Konx-Om-Pax

Scelsi, who completed over one hunded works and was an eclectic and fascinating musical figure. Scelsi was to live into 1988 but retired from composition in 1976. Scelsi's final composition, Maknongan is a short work for a low instrument (double bass, contra-bassoon, bass tuba or as in this recording. The title is not explained though there I found references to a celtic origin, but this is completely unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, the work is interesting as it was chosen to be his final work and thus was the completion of everything that he wanted to say through his compositions. Scelsi, who tried to hide a great deal of his life from the public and specifically from musicological and historical investigation, is fascinating in that he chose when to stop composing, realising there was no need to go any farther.