Ildebrando Pizzetti


Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music, musicologist and music critic.

Biography

Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi, Gian Francesco Malipiero, and Alfredo Casella. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions were not in opera.
Ildebrando Pizzetti was the son of Odoardo Pizzetti, a pianist and piano teacher who was his son'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 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 His students included Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Olga Rudge, Manoah Leide-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. Pizzetti was an active supporter of fascism and signed the Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals in 1925.
A disciple of poet, playwright and revolutionary Gabriele d'Annunzio, Pizzetti wrote incidental music to his plays, and was highly influenced by d'Annunzio's dark neoclassic themes. One of Pizzetti's later operas is a setting of d'Annunzio's La Figlia Di Jorio.
He was named to the Royal Academy of Italy in 1939. As noted by Sciannameo, 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" Pizzetti's Symphony in A was premiered as noted in the article, and recorded in 1940, and again by Naxos with his Harp Concerto
His Violin Concerto in A was premiered in 1944 by Gioconda de Vito; this seems to be the only 20th century violin concerto she ever played.
Some of his works were published under the name "Ildebrando da Parma".

Selected works

Orchestral music