Ildebrando Pizzetti | |
---|---|
Born |
Parma, Italy |
20 September 1880
Died | 13 February 1968 Rome, Italy |
(aged 87)
Occupation | composer, musicologist, music critic |
Era | 20th century |
Ildebrando Pizzetti (20 September 1880 – 13 February 1968) was an Italian composer of classical music, musicologist and music critic.
Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were 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 Giuseppe Martucci; but with the "Generation of 1880" these traditions became stronger.)
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 (director from 1917 to 1923), directed the Milan Conservatory from 1923, and was Respighi's successor at the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome from 1936 to 1958) His students included Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Olga Rudge, Manoah Leide-Tedesco and Franco Donatoni. See: List of music students by teacher: N to Q#Ildebrando Pizzetti. Also a music critic, he wrote several books on the music of Italy and of Greece and co-founded a musical journal.