BU College of Fine Arts Dean's Blog

Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1982)

I was pleased to see a good crowd on hand at a concert in the CFA Concert Hall this past Sunday night, which was the culminating event of the Callithumpian Consort Sprectral Summer Workshop. I fully support this kind of initiative.

A commissioned piece composed by our own Joshua Feinberg was performed: Counterfactual:  hommage á Scelsi.  “The piece…takes the central gesture of Scelsi’s trio Okanagon and reimagines a new sound-world out of that gesture, creating a completely new work.”

On Scelsi:

Giacinto Scelsi was born on January 8^th, 1905 to an aristocratic family living on an old estate in the country surrounding Naples in southern Italy. Though he had little formal musical training, he is now recognized as one of the most creative composers of our century.

Scelsi’s mature music is marked by a supreme concentration on single notes, combined with a masterly sense of form. Scelsi revolutionized the role of sound in western music – his best known work is the Quattro Pezzi per Orchestra, each on a single note. These single notes are elaborated through microtonal shadings, harmonic allusions, and variations in timbre and dynamics. It is impossible to express the immense power of this apparently simple music in words. –www.classicalnet.com