Born in the village of Pitelli near La Spezia, Scelsi spent most of his time in his mother's old

castle where he received education from a private tutor who taught him Latin, chess and fencing.
Later, his family moved to Rome and his musical talents were encouraged by private lessons
with Giacinto Sallustio. In Vienna, he studied with Walther Klein, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg.
He became the first exponent of dodecaphony in Italy, although he did not continue to use this
system.
In the 1920s, Scelsi made friends with intellectuals like Jean Cocteau and Virginia Woolf, and
traveled abroad extensively. He first came into contact with non-European music in Egypt in
1927. His first composition was Chemin du coeur (1929). Then followed Rotativa, first conducted
by Pierre Monteux at Salle Pleyel, Paris, on 20 December 1931.
In 1937, he organised a series of concerts of contemporary works, introducing the music of
(among others) Paul Hindemith, Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Sergei
Prokofiev to an Italian audience for the first time. Due to the enforcement of racial laws under
the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, which prevented the performance of works by Jewish
composers, these concerts did not continue for long. Scelsi refused to comply, and gradually
distanced himself from Italy. In 1940, when Italy entered the war, Scelsi was in Switzerland,
where he remained until the end of the conflict, composing and honing his conception of music.
He married Dorothy Kate Ramsden, a divorced Englishwoman.
Back in Rome after the war, his wife left him (eventually inspiring Elegia per Ty), and he
underwent a profound psychological crisis that eventually led him to the discovery of Eastern
spirituality, and also to a radical transformation of his view of music. In this so-called second
period, he rejected the notions of composition and authorship in favour of sheer improvisation.
His improvisations were recorded on tape and later transcribed by collaborators under his
guidance. They were then orchestrated and filled out by his meticulous performance instructions,
or adjusted from time to time in close collaboration with the performers.
Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher, transcendent
reality to the listener. In this view, the artist is considered a mere intermediary. For this reason,
Scelsi never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music; he preferred instead to
identify himself by a line under a circle, as a symbol of Eastern provenance. Some photographs
of Scelsi have emerged since his death.
One of the earliest interpreters Scelsi closely worked with was the singer Michiko Hirayama,
whom he met in 1957 in Rome. From 1962 to 1972 he wrote the extensive song cycle Canti del
Capricorno directly for her in view of her special and unique vocal range. The writing process of
the piece set an example for Scelsi's very personal way of working: developing pieces through
improvisation, recording, and then making a final transcription.[1]
From the late 1970s, he met several leading interpreters who have promoted his music all over
the world and gradually opened the gates to wider audiences, such as the Arditti String Quartet,
the cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, and the pianists Yvar Mikhashoff and Marianne Schroeder.
Scelsi was a friend and a mentor to Alvin Curran (whose VSTO is a tribute) and other expatriate
American composers such as Frederic Rzewski who were residing in Rome during the 1960s
(Curran, 2003, in NewMusicBox). Scelsi also collaborated with other American composers
including John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown (who visited him in Rome).
Frances-Marie Uitti, dedicatee of all Scelsi's cello works, collaborated intensively with him for
over 10 years editing and then recording La Trilogia, a massive 3 part work of 45 minutes in
length which Morton Feldman called his "autobiography in sound". It was first premiered in
Festival di Como, and recorded on Fore records (Raretone) with Scelsi in the studio and later
for Etcetera Records. A more recent acclaimed version with several of the Latin Prayers is to be
found on ECM under the title Natura Renovatur. Uitti also transcribed many of the chamber
works for contrabass, contrabass and cello, viola, and two improvisations based on the ondiolina
tapes that are found under the title Voyages.
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 on 9 August 1988.
tht5y4y45y54y5Cvbvcbcv4565464

fdsfsdfsdfgdfgdghjjnxnvct43t35342343

thtrhth