Ildebrando Pizzetti

Pizzetti, Ildebrando 

Born Sept. 20, 1880, in Parma; died Jan. 17, 1968, in Rome. Italian composer and writer on music. Member of the Italian Academy (1939).

Pizzetti taught at the conservatories of Parma (1908), Florence (from 1909, director from 1917), and Milan (director from 1924 to 1935). Beginning in 1936, he occupied the chair of composition at the National Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome, of which he was president from 1948 to 1951.

Pizzetti specialized in opera and other theatrical genres. He frequently turned to medieval subjects, stylizing Renaissance music forms. He wrote more than ten operas, usually to his own librettos. His most important operas include Fedra (based on G. d’Annunzio’s tragedy, 1915), Assassinio nella cattedrale (based on T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, 1958), and Clytemnestra (1964), all staged at La Scala. He also wrote music for the staging of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. Pizzetti is the author of The Music of Greece (1914), Contemporary Music (1914), and Paganini (1940).

REFERENCE

Gatti, G. M. I. Pizzetti. [Milan, 1954.]