Giacinto Scelsi’s relationship with the piano is interesting and contradictory. For no other instrument has the Italian composer and poet composed so many pieces; to no other instrument does he seem so closely attached, both personally and biographically; and no other instrument disappeared so abruptly and finally from his scores as the piano, the European showcase instrument. With the piano, we can follow the break lines and develop-ments in the musical thinking and works of Giacinto Scelsi, which are key to an understanding of his striking compositional development.
As late piano compositions, Action music and Suite Nr. 8 mark a transition to Giacinto Scelsi’s new musical language: the exploration of the individual sound, the inclination to a sound-energetic agglomeration, the gesture of improvisation - all this is also clearly discernable in both his works.