Giacinto Scelsi: Music across the Borders
Federico CELESTINI

The work of the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) brings a special urgency to the main questions of musical thought. These questions concern subjectivity in composition and music making; the relationship between sound, structure, and form; the relationship between improvisation and composition; and the role of musical writing in terms of composition and performance. This is undoubtedly also the product of his complex working method, in which improvisation, composition, musical writing, and performance follow one another, each imposing their own, often divergent, mark on the end result. The opening of the Isabella Scelsi Foundation archive in Rome in 2009 highlighted the significance of the composer while facilitating new research perspectives on his work. Now is the right time for a larger publication to document and propagate recent results and new approaches.