Casella, Alfredo

Preface

Alfredo Casella
(b. Turin, July 25th, 1883 – d. Rome, March 5th, 1947)

Notturno e Tarantella

Preface
The Italian composer, pianist and conductor Alfredo Casella was born in 1885 in Turin in a family of musicians. His grandfather and father were cellists, and his mother a pianist, so he received his first piano lessons from her. In 1896 he continued his music studies at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied piano under Louis Diémer and composition under Gabriel Fauré, in the same class as Maurice Ravel. During his time at the French capital he made acquaintances of many artists and composers who directly or indirectly influenced his further development as an artist, including Mahler, Richard Strauss, Debussy and Stravinsky.

His 1905 Symphony was among the first of his works to be publicly performed. It relies on late Romanticism, including a monumental orchestra and saturated harmonies. This work opened doors for him and launched his career as a conductor after the 1908 Monte Carlo premiere performance. This was the opening stage of further divarication of his music work. After he finished his education at the Conservatoire he moved back to Italy and started working as a teacher at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, as well as pursuing an affluent career as a pianist. He popularized contemporary the European repertoire, introducing Stravinsky and Ravel to Italian music scene. During the early years of the second decade of 20th century he explored Expressionism, producing such pieces as L’Adieu à la Vie and A Notte Alta. As a part of generazione dell’ottanta, as his generation was called in Italy of the time (including himself, Malipiero, Respighi, Alfano and Pizzeti), he founded the Società Italiana di Musica Moderna. …

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