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P o e t ry – Art – PhilosophyExploring many cultures near and far,

Giacinto Scelsi was invo l ved in many different

aspects of the cultural, artistic, intellectual and

spiritual life of the twentieth century. In the

1920s and 1930s, while living in Paris, he

d e veloped a strong interest in surrealism. He

socialized with Salvador Dalí and the poets

Paul Eluard and Henri Michaux. Scelsi wrote

and later published seve ral collections of

surrealist, multilingual and aphoristic poems

(some of wh i ch consist of one word only). He

also wrote other literary texts, and often i ronic

or enigmatic autobiographical essays as well

as articles on music and painting.

S c e l s i ’s spiritual ideas are marked by a

belief in reincarnation, interest in my s t i c i s m ,

pantheism, theosophy, Rudolf Steiner’s anthro-

p o s o p hy and a fascination wi th Asian philoso-

phies and Buddhism nurtured by his trips to

India and Nepal. Since the early 1950s he

resided in Rome at a house near the RomanForum, wh i ch he considered “the boundary

between East and We s t .” “South of Rome the

East starts, north of Rome the West starts. Th e

borderline runs exactly through the Roman

Fo r u m .” His fascination with Eastern ideas can

be seen in his practicing of yoga and other

forms of meditation, his choice of a Zen sign

(a large underlined circle symbolizing the sun

rising or setting) to represent him in place of a

p h o t o g raph and in his predilect ion for Oriental

headgear (described in his autobiogra p h i c a l

e s s ay “L’homme aux chapeaux” (The Man with

the Hats).

Musical Aesthetics –Creative Process“ H ow on earth did you get from all those notes

to just one note? Dear Morty, I would like to

h ave been able to say, since at the time I didn’t k n ow either, it happened .”

—From a conversation between Morton

Feldman and Scelsi in 1986)

S c e l s i ’s musical training was informal.

He received piano lessons early on and some

theoretical instruction from Giacinto Sallustio,

Egon Koehler and Walter Klein. His early

musical interes ts, including futurism, A l e x a n d e rS c r i a b i n ’s music, atonality and dodecaphony

and his invo l vement with Eastern thought, led

him to a very personalized and subjective

a p p r o a ch to composition, explained in his

An Autobiography8 January 1905

a naval officer reports the birth

of a son

fencing chess Latin

a medieval education

an old castle in southern Italy Vienna

work with dodecaphony

London, marriage

reception at Buckingham Palace

India (Yoga)

Nepal Parisconcerts

( w o rks that have left traces in the cracks)

bridges

( c o n versat ions with tram ps, borne dow n - s t re a m )

incombustible poems survive

in Rome sounds

solitary life sounds

negation of that which makes man gloomy

something forgotten?

(Giacinto Scelsi, August 1984)

Toward“una nota sola”: Notes on Giacinto Scelsi’s Worldof Ideas and Piano Music by Sabine Feisst

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and four sonatas, was conceived in two periods.Between 1930 and 1941 Scelsi composed his

forty Preludes, four Sonatas, the first seve n

Suites, and Quattro Po e m i , all of wh i ch for the

most part reveal his interest in the musical

ideas of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and

Scriabin. His Quattro Poemi of wh i ch the last

piece is dedicated to Berg feature quotations

from Berg’s Piano Sonata, op. 1. Between 1952

and 1956, after about a decade of little artistic

p r o d u c t ivity due to mental illness, four more

suites as well as the Quattro Illustra z i o n i ,Cinque Incantesimi and Action Music f o l-

l owed. In these compositions Scelsi more and

more explored single tones. Due to an increas-

ing interest in the microtonal qualities of sound, Scelsi practically ceased composing for

the piano with its half-tone step and equal

t e m p e rament limitat ions. Exceptions include

A i t s i of 1974 wh i chwas written for ondiolina

(a small electric keyboard with keys and dialsfor the production of quarter-tones, glissandi

and a variety of timbres) and Un A d i e u o f

1988, composed in the year of Scelsi’s death

(Scelsi fell on 8 August 1988 into a coma and

died the next day— he regarded eight as his

fateful number).

Scelsi had to wait for decades to hear

his later piano pieces performed. W h e r e a s

esteemed pianists like Alfred Cortot and Nikita

Magaloff played some of Scelsi’s early works

in the 1930s, his later piano compositions (andmost of his other music for that matter) were

only discovered in the early 1970s by pianists

s u ch as Frederic Rzewski, Y var Mikhashoff and

Geoffrey Douglas Madge who premiered them

and sparked ongoing interest in his work.

Suite No. 2“The Twelve Minor Prophets”

Written in 1930, the Suite No. 2 belongs toS c e l s i ’s earliest surviving works and was thus

c o n c e ived in a traditional manner and notated

by Scelsi himself. It is one of twelve suites, and

like the Suites Nos. 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, it is dis-

tinguished by a subtitle. Whereas most suites

feature Sanskrit-derived titles such as “Bot-ba”

(No. 8), “Ttai” (No. 9) and “Ka” (No. 10), the

chosen appellation here, “The Tw e l ve Minor

P r o p h e t s ,” al ludes to the “Books of the MinorProphets” from the Old Testament. “The Minor

Prophets” were written by twelve indiv i d u a l s

(Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,

Nahum, Habakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,

Z e chariah and Malachi), who foretold the

futu re events depicted in the Old Te s t a m e n t .

( The term ”minor” refers to the books’ short

lengths, not their importance.)

The Second Suite reveals an affinity withS c r i a b i n ’s la ter works in that it moves away

from conventional tonality, regular p eriodicityand linear construction toward a focus on

e s s ay “Sens de la musique” (1944). Scelsitherein describes four pr incipal forces, rhy t h m ,

a f f e c t iv i t y, psychism and intellect, wh i ch are

interdependent and seem to traverse humans in

an uninterrupted flow of v ibrations of va r i a b l e

i n t e n s i t y. Through these four forces, wh i ch can

be identified as emotions or virtual images and

t ransformed into art, mankind is connected with

the universe. For Scelsi, rhythm is the phy s i c a l

propulsion and condition of human existence,

and it manifests itself in composition as an

alternation of sound and s ilence. A f f e c t iv i t ycorresponds to melody, psychism to harmony

and intellect to musical structure. Yet music

does not need to pass the “filter” of the intellect.

In another important text, “Son et musique”(1953-54), Scelsi elaborated on his very special

ideas about sound as cosmic energy and about

the depth and three-dimensional nature of

sound:

“ The sound is round like a sphere, ye twhen one hears it, it seems to have only two

dimensions: register and dura t i on—of the

third [dimension] we know that it exists, but

it escapes us in some way. The high and low

overtones sometimes give the impression of a

more comprehensive, manifold sound beyo n d

d u ration and register, but it is difficult to com-

prehend its complexity.”

In his search for the t hird dimension of

sound, Scelsi became more and more fascinated

with single pitches, wh i chhe reitera t e d ,embroidered and subtly modified in timbre

and intensity so that they would gain a vibra n t

resonance and scintillating quality. His explo-

ration of sonic depth and plastici ty eve n t u a l l y

led him to the conception of works primarily

based on single notes and their manifold

microtonal and timbral nuances.

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s

Scelsi composed and notated his music in a

t raditional manner. Yet from the late 1940s on,

he began to compose his works in real time byi m p r ovising t hem at the p iano or on other

instruments and taping them. Assistants were

e m p l oyed to transcribe and edit these “sonic

m e d i t a t i o n s .” Scelsi even remarked that he didnot consider himself a composer, but rather a

medium or vessel who tra n s c e n d e n t a l l y

r e c e ived musical messages while improv i s i n g .

The resulting sco res, how e ve r, did not allow

for improvisa tory fle x i b i l i t y. L ike Scelsi and hisassistants, the performer has to assume the role

of a medium, who merely conveys the sounds

to the audience.

S c e l s i ’s Music for PianoA piano virtuoso and talented keyboard

i m p r ov i s e r, Scelsi wrote prolifically for this

instrument. His pianistic oeuvre, wh i ch com-

prises forty preludes, a dozen large-scale suites


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time: improvised by Scelsi, taped and thent ranscribed by one of his dozen or so assistants.

Action Music therefore most obviously captu r e s

the spontaneity of such a creative process.

Action Music is comprised of nine short

m ovements all of wh i ch defy traditional form

and conventional motivic-thematic organiza-

tion. Scelsi avoids linear and deve l o p m e n t a l

contours and contrapuntal structure. Instead,

he prefers a more chordal style, stationary

chords and tones and repetitive elements.

Harmonically this work presents a compendiumof clusters ranging from small to large, from

pentatonic to chromatic and from simultaneous

to arpeggiated and additive ones. It therefore

brings Henry Cow e l l ’s important ach i e ve m e n tin this area to mind. In Movement IV

“ M a r t e l l a t o ,” for instance, forceful ch r o m a t i c

and pentatonic clusters and glissandos of va r i-

able ambitus are performed with palm and

forearm. Yet the harmonic texture is sometimesalso reduced to repetitions of a few notes or

e ven a single pitch wh i ch are often treated as

a focal point. This is especially the case in

M ovements V, VII and IX of Action Music . In

M ovement IX “Con fuoco,” f o r t i s s i m o c a s c a d e s

of small clusters tumble down on a single pitch

(Bb), wh i ch is then hammered out in rhy t h m i c

variations. Thereafter the one-note passage is

t i m b rally and spatiall y redefined by the gra d u a l

introduction of upper and lower neighboring

notes. Further into the movement, A emergesas the main focus; A marks the frame of two -

o c t ave clusters and A becomes a pedal point.

Scelsi uses key signatures as sparingly as he

e m p l oys bar-lines, and he typical ly d ispenses

with time signatures allowing the music to flow

in an unrestrained manner. Movement II with

its relentlessly ascending and descending small

eighth-note clusters features a highly elastic

a p p r o a ch to musical time due to the long

a c c e l e randos and rallentandos. Listening to

Action Music is an exhilarating experience.—Sabine Fe i s s t

Stephen Clarke has performed as a soloist in

f e s t ivals in Europe, Canada, and the U.S.He has worked with a number of ensembles

and has performed as a soloist with the Los

Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, the

Toronto Symphony Orch e s t ra and the

Composers’ Orch e s t ra. Mr. Clarke s tudiedcomposition at the University of Toronto and

has written works for various ensembles.

Sabine Feisst is Assistant Professor of

Music History and L iterature at A r i z o n a

State Unive r s i t y. She has numerous publica-

tions to her credit, including the book Der

Begriff “Improvisation” in der neuen Music

( The Idea of Improvisation in New Music,

Sinzig: Studio Verlag, 1997).

more dissonant chromaticism and indiv i d u a ls o n o r i t y. On the one hand Scelsi strives for

great tonal, rhythmic, timbral and expressive

d ive r s i fication ( indicated by pesante, miste-

rioso, stridente , and ra b b i o s o , etc.). On the

other hand he uses ostinato patterns and pedal

points and repeats motives or chords over and

over again, and thereby often reinterprets and

i n d ividualizes these sound objects through

highly differentiated expressive indications,

registers and dynamics and eve r- ch a n g i n g

tempi. Scelsi’s fascination with the reitera t ivee x p l o ration of the same sound ob ject i s mir-

rored in his preference of mu lti-move m e n t

forms such as this suite, wh i ch embra c e s

t w e l vemovements .A highly virtuosic and expressive work, this

Suite opens with short “grandioso” gestures,

freely chromatic chords and arpeggios. The

initially extremely varied rhythm and elastic

tempo soon give way to more repetitive rhy t h-mic patterns , and the p itch Eb gra d u a l l y

emerges as a focal point due to its steady

occurrence as a stationary tone and fin a l l y

crystallizes as the third of c minor. In the third

m ovement, how e ve r, Scelsi limited himself to

the exploration of mostly three pitches, Gb, F

and E, in a largely monodic and unison setting.

Other movements such as the fourth and fif t h

feature frequently repeated rhythmic fig u r e s ,

trills and short runs. Ove rall this work and

m a ny of Scelsi’s later compositions, reveal thefrequent omission of time signatures and an

infrequent use of bar-lines evoking an almost

i m p r ovisatory treatment of musical time.

Action MusicWritten in 1955, Action Music is among

S c e l s i ’s last piano works; it was followed by

very few compositions for this instrument

(Suite No. 11, 1956, A i t s i , 1974, and U n

a d i e u , 1988). Action Music ( m ovements I-IV)

was premiered by Geoffrey Douglas Madge in

1986 in Darmstadt. The title Action Music —

only used once and of less enigmatic nature

than many other titles— clearly points to the

high energy and physical and gestural elementsof the music. The wo r k ’s vigorous ch a racter is

underscored by predominantly fast tempi and

directions for playing, including violento, con

fuoco , martellato, fra g o r o s o (deafening) and

come perc u s s i o n e . Further, in Action Music

the performers are asked to play the piano in

unusual ways by using their palms parallel to

the keyboard, and employing fists and fore-

arms to perform single p itches, chords, clusters

and glissandi. In the 1960s Alvin Lucier and

Tom Johnson would follow in Scelsi’s footstepsand compose works with the same title focus-

ing even more overtly on the physicality of the

act of performance. Like all of Scelsi’s later

works, Action Music was composed in real


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