Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) was an Italian composer who chose a path separate from all modernist movements and created music of a highly intuitive, mystical nature. A breakdown caused Scelsi to reassess his music, and from the 1950s on he composed in an intensely focused manner, often through improvisations that were later set to paper. His Four Pieces, Each on a Single Note is typical of his minimalist style, and several other works feature the same obsessive use of isolated pitches with slight variations over static harmonic backgrounds. Scelsi used a circle over a horizontal line as his symbol, in lieu of a portrait.