Ildebrando Pizzetti

1880-1968
“A musician loaded with historical and intellectual significance”

● Born in Parma
● Died in Rome
● La generazione dell’80
○ Alfano, Respighi, Malipiero, Casella
Life
● Started as a playwright
○ 2 of his plays had been produced
● Taught piano by his father
● 1895: began studying composition
○ Parma Conservatory
○ Telesforo Righi: Harmony and counterpoint
● 1902-4: assistant conductor at Teatro Regio di Parma
● Taught counterpoint
● Spent most of time in Italy
● Spent some time in Paris
● Music critic, author
Musical Output
● Opera, Orchestral works, chamber works, sacred works, film scores
● > 30 songs for voice and piano
○ Cinque liriche, Tre Sonetti del Petrarca, Mirologio per un bambino, Due canti d’amore, Tre cant
grechi, Canzoni
● Vocal works with orchestra
● Collaboration and friendship with Gabriele D’Annunzio
○ ‘Ildebrando di Parma’
○ “Incidental music”
■ La Nave (1908)
■ La Pisanelle ou La mort Parfumée (1912)
○ “I pastori” - song for voice and piano
○ Fedra
○ La figlia di Jorio
● Wrote own librettos
Style

● Unexpected modulations, chromatic, polychordal writing

● Renounced traditional melodies in favor of declamatory song-form
○ Puccini was skeptical about this
● Trend in Italian music
○ Medieval and ecclesiastical modes, folk material
● Subject matter: D’Annunzio → Bible → Italian history
● 1932: Signed Manifesto with Respighi, Zandonai and other reactionaries
○ Attacked the more forward-looking trends of the time and recommended a return to tradition
Fascism
● Actively and openly fascist
● 1925: signed the Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals
○ Performed privately for Mussolini this same year in Rome
● Significant relationship with Mussolini
○ Telegrams
○ Dèbora e Jaéle (1921) won “Premio per le Arti”, a 50,000 lire prize named after Mussolini
● 1933: officially joined the Fascist Party
● 1935: premiere of Orsélo secured by intervention of Mussolini
Assassinio nella cattedrale (1958)

● Premiered on March 1 at La Scala

● Two acts and an intermezzo
● Libretto by Pizzetti
○ Adaptation of an Italian translation of T. S.
Eliot's 1935 play Murder in the Cathedral
● Plot
○ Chorus- ancient Greek drama
The Music

● Chromaticism
○ To the point of almost exotic
● Unexpected modulations
● Declamatory
● No closed numbers - “incidental”
● Church, chant-like music

Act I Finale: https://youtu.be/Hx9i3s-KnfA

Intermezzo: https://youtu.be/hAzFJCdlHaM
Soprano Act II “Aria”: https://youtu.be/TCQTTWNAwW0
The Libretto

● Play-like
○ Text heavy
● Some lines are poetic, but no real scheme

https://www.flaminioonline.it/Guide/Pizzetti/Pizzetti-Assassinio137-testo.html