House Museum Museo Casa Giacinto Scelsi

Born in 1908 in Arcola, in the province of La Spezia, but Roman by adoption, Giacinto Scelsi was one of the leading figures of 20th-century Italian music, an eclectic, visionary and experimental composer (but also a traveller, poet and scholar of Eastern religions and philosophies) whose music is characterised by an innovative use of sound, often dissonant and minimalist.

The building in Via di San Teodoro, where the composer settled in the early 1960s and where he died on 8 August 1988, is now home (on the first floor) to the Isabella Scelsi Foundation, the universal heir to the Maestro’s artistic and cultural legacy. The building is strategically located between the Campidoglio and the Roman Forum, with a large terrace offering a wonderful panoramic view of the city, a source of inspiration for many of Scelsi’s works.

In accordance with the composer’s wishes, who left behind not only his music and writings but also the “place” he loved and where he worked and created for many years, in 1996 the apartment (on the fourth floor) was opened to the public as a house museum. The living room contains the early 20th-century Bechstein piano on which Scelsi played like a virtuoso, surrounded by instruments from all over the world and souvenirs from his travels in the East: shells, bells, cymbals, Tibetan trumpets, tam-tams, gongs, and a silent travel keyboard.

Next to the piano are two “ondiolines”, small keyboards that in the 1950s anticipated electronic keyboards by reproducing quarter and eighth tones. Scelsi used them for his improvisations: the music was recorded on magnetic tape and then transcribed by collaborators working under his guidance. The museum is also enriched by a reproduction of Salvador Dalí’s diptych “Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages” (1936), which belonged to Scelsi and is now owned by the Isabella Scelsi Foundation. For security reasons, the original is kept and exhibited at the Mart - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto.

Photo Isabella Scelsi Foundation