Profile of Ildebrando Pizzetti on Famous Like Me

Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880–1968) was an Italian composer of classical music.

He was part of the "Generation of 1880" which also included Ottorino Respighi and Gian-Francesco Malipiero, 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 this generation it became stronger.)

He was born in Parma on September 20, the son of Odoardo Pizzetti, a pianist and piano teacher who was Ildebrando's first teacher. At first he seemed to be headed for a career as a playwright and had written several plays, two of which had been produced, before, in 1895 he decided on a career in music and entered the Conservatorium of Parma.

He was taught there from 1897 by Giovanni Tebaldini, and here 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 onwards.) His students included Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 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.

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.)

He died in Rome on February 13, 1968.

Works

• Messa di Requiem
• Violin sonata in C minor (1900)
• 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)
• Symphony in A in celebrazione del XXVIo centenario della fondazione dell'Impero giapponese. written around and pub. 1940
• Two string quartets (in A from 1906; in D, written 1932-33, pub. 1934.)
• Many operas including Fedra, Ifigenia and Clitennestra after Greek plays, Fra Gherardo, Assassinio nella cattedrale, Orsèolo
• 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)
• Violoncello concerto in C pub. 1935
• Violin concerto in A, pub. 1946
• 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

External links

• Biography
• Further biography from notes to a recording covering fifty years' worth of orchestral works by the composer (from the 1901 Ouverture per l'Edipo a Colono to the 1952 Preludio ad un altro giorno
• Pizzetti, Mussolini and "Scipio Africanus"
• List of principal compositions and biography in Italian

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Ildebrando Pizzetti