Ildebrando Pizzetti

Ildebrando Pizzetti (Parma, September 20, 1880; Rome, February 13, 1968) was an Italian composer of classical music.

Pizzetti was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian-Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions were "not" in opera. (The instrumental and "a cappella" traditions had never died in Italian music and had produced, for instance, the string quartets of Antonio Scontrino (1850-1922) and the works of Respighi's teacher Martucci; but with the "Generation of 1880" these traditions became stronger.)

Ildebrando Pizzetti was born in Parma, the son of Odoardo Pizzetti, a pianist and piano teacher who was Ildebrando's first teacher. At first Pizzetti seemed headed for a career as a playwright -- he had written several plays, two of which had been produced -- before he decided in 1895 on a career in music and entered the Conservatorium of Parma.

There he was taught there from 1897 by Giovanni Tebaldini and gained the beginnings of his lifelong interest in the early music of Italy, reflected in his own music and his writings.

He taught at the Conservatory in Florence (directed from 1917 to 1923, directed conservatory at Milan from 1923 and was Respighi's successor at the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome from 1936 to 1958cite book|last=Randel|first=Don Michael|title=The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music|date=1996|oclc=34553491|isbn=0-674-37299-9|pages=697|publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9fjl7NhMmWwC&pg=PA697&dq=pizzetti+ildebrando&lr=&ei=XeBuR4fBLZCYiwHyhPVg&sig=gIhOAKcwxKh9nvSpKrbbIIQFXHs|accessdate=2007-12-23] ) His students included Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Olga Rudge and Franco Donatoni. Also a music critic, he wrote several books on the music of Italy and of Greece and co-founded a musical journal.

A disciple of poet, playwright and revolutionary Gabriele D'Annunzio, Pizzetti wrote incidental music to his plays, and was highly infuenced by D'Annunzio's dark neoclassic themes. One of Pizzetti's later operas is a setting of D'Annunzio's "La Figlia Di Jorio".

As noted in the article linked among External links, his relations with the Fascist government of the 1940s were often positive, sometimes mixed; he received at one point high awards, and the one symphony of his mature years was the product of a commission from their Japanese allies to celebrate the "XXVI Centennial of the foundation of the Japanese Empire" (Benjamin Britten's "Sinfonia da Requiem" was also commissioned for this event, though it was rejected on account of its finale; its original finale was rediscovered after Britten's death and only premiered then. The Pizzetti "Sinfonie in la" was premiered, as noted in the article, and recorded - its only recording as of 2005 - on December 7 1940.)

His works have not been frequently performed; their less than emotional, almost minimalist quality has made them difficult to appreciate.

elected Works

Orchestral Music

*Symphony in A "in celebrazione del XXVIo centenario della fondazione dell'Impero giapponese." 1940
*Incidental music, especially to plays by d'Annunzio
*Harp concerto in E-flat (pub. 1960)
*3 Sonetti del Petrarca
*Tre composizioni corali
*Other vocal works, e.g. Epithalamium (1939? 1940, played at a Library of Congress concert in April 1940 and again in 1977)
*Violoncello concerto in C (1933-4)
*Violin concerto in A, 1944
*Canti della stagione alta : concerto for piano and orchestra
*Sinfonia del fuoco (from music for the silent film "Cabiria")
*Rondo veneziano (1929)
*Concerto dell'Estate

Operas

*Sabina (1897)
*Il Cid (1903)
*Aeneas (1903)
*Mazeppa (1905, unfinished)
*Gigliola (1914, unfinished)
*Fedra (1915)
*Debora e Jaele (1915-21)
*Fra Gherardo (1928)
*Lo Straniero (1930)
*Orsèolo (1935)
*L'Oro (1947)
*Vanna Lupa (1949)
*Cagliostro (1953)
*La Figlia di Jorio (1954)
*Povera gente (1956 unfinished)
*Assassinio nella cattedrale (1958) (with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni and Leyla Gencer in the first cast, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, staged by Margherita Wallmann at La Scala)
*Il calzare d'argento (1961)
*Clitennestra (1965)

Chamber Music

*Violin sonata in C minor (1900)
*String Quartet n.1 in A major (1906)
*Violin sonata in A (championed by Yehudi Menuhin) written 1918–9, pub. 1920
*Cello sonata in F 1921, pub. 1922
*"Tre canti" for cello and piano
*Piano sonata pub. 1942
*Piano trio in G minor (1900)
*Piano trio in A (from 1925)
*String Quartet n.2 in D (written 1932-33, pub. 1934.)

acred Music

*Messa di Requiem (1922)

External links

* [http://www.operaitaliana.net/pizzettieng.htm Biography]
* [http://www.dynomind.com/p/articles/mi_qa3870/is_200407/ai_n9420160?pi=dyn Pizzetti, Mussolini and "Scipio Africanus"]
* [http://www.rodoni.ch/malipiero/pizzettibio.html List of principal compositions and biography in Italian]

Bibliography

*cite book|last=Gatti|first=Guido Maria|coauthors=Moore, D., translator|title=Ildebrando Pizzetti|date=1951|oclc=382628|location=London|publisher=D. Dobson|isbn=0-234-77138-0|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=yK3-AAAACAAJ&dq=pizzetti&ei=1N5uR9e4CIXoiQGfpdRm|accessdate=2007-12-23

References