Salviucci, Giovanni

Giovanni Salviucci – Sinfonia italiana per orchestra

(b. Rome, 26 October 1907 – d. Rome, 4 September 1937 )

Allegro moderato e pesante p.1
Largo molto p.18
Allegro, Largamente p.37
Presto 45

Instrumentation: orchestra
Composed: 1932
First performed: Teatro Augusteo di Roma, 1934 (conductor: Dimitri Mitropoulos)
Published: Ricordi, Milan, 1934

„Dear Giovanni, you have left us forever and for our group of artists and friends, of which you were such a big part, your passing means a loss that will be felt even more strongly as the years pass. You fell in the middle of the battle, while you fought alongside us to provide Italy with the music which is in all of our hearts. While some of your faithful companions – like myself, and others of my generation – have already reached the twilight years of their lives, and can therefore consider themselves close to the end of their hard battle – for others who are younger, the lack of your strong, noble intelligence means that the fighting potential of their group is severely impaired. And so they – these young men – as they contemplate how much you had already done, and how much you would still have created – must stand together more closely and fight even more strongly for the complete victory of this Italian art form, for which we have given everything, and will continue to give all our spiritual energy until the end. With this wish, we bow in front of your tomb, all those blessed with the great fortune to have had you as a cherished disciple and very dear friend.“
So wrote Alfredo Casella on the occasion of the death of the young Giovanni Salviucci in Rivista Musicale Italiana (XLI, 1937). These few words show the common intention amongst most Italian musicians working in the first decades of the Twentieth Century to produce a specifically Italian musical repertoire which was, however, distinct from nineteenth-century operatic Romanticism of Italian music, and at the same time was not a mere imitation of the musical output from abroad. Alfredo Casella, the standard bearer of Italian music, alongside other composers of his generation (known as the ‘dell’Ottanta’), fought in the frontline to achieve this goal, and passed on this ambition to young Italian musicians from the following generation, including Salviucci. …

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