Giacinto Scelsi

About

Born 8th January 1905 in La Spezia, died 9th August 1988 in Rome, Scelsi 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, but has gone through four different creative periods. His musical output 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 premiered many of his pieces to great acclaim. He has then been noted as a visionary of many avantgarde ideas that only later became known through the works of other composers.