Abbiati, Franco Page 1 of 1

Abbiati, Franco
(b Verdello, 14 Sept 1898; d Bergamo, 22 Jan 1981). Italian music critic. He took
a diploma in composition at the Turin Conservatory (1929) and studied
musicology with Cesari. His career as a critic was centred in Milan; after working
on Secolo sera (1928–34), he succeeded Cesari at Corriere della sera, remaining
there until his retirement (1973). In 1949 he founded the monthly journal La scala,
which he edited until its closure in 1963; he was particularly interested in opera,
especially its authentic performance. Abbiati also published a history of music in
five volumes (1939–46), which he later updated and revised in four volumes
(1967–8). This was well received, although (being the work of a single author) it
was inevitably incomplete; the comments in the second edition on 20th-century
composers, notably Italian composers of Abbiati’s own generation, are especially
valuable as a contemporary response. His four-volume work on Verdi (1959)
contains many letters and documents not previously published.
WRITINGS
ed.: Gaetano Cesari: scritti inediti (Milan, 1937)
Storia della musica (Milan, 1939–46, 2/1967–8; abridged 1955, 2/1971)
Guida al Peter Grimes di Britten (Milan, 1947)
Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1959)
‘Arrigo Boito “nimico di menzogna”’, L'opera italiana in musica: scritti e saggi in
onore di Eugenio Gara (Milan, 1965), 141–7
Alti e bassi del Simon Boccanegra (Verona, 1973)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DBI (B.H. Antolini)
L. Bellingardi: ‘In memoriam’, NRMI, xv (1981), 163–4
CAROLYN GIANTURCO

mk:@MSITStore:D:\Bittorrent\TheNewGroveDictionaryOfMusicMusicians\The%20... 31/01/2018