Giacinto Scelsi, Count of Ayala Valva (8 January 1905 – 9 August 1988), was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for writing music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his revolutionary "Quattro pezzi su una nota sola" ("Four Pieces on a single note", 1959). His musical output