An Overview of Recent Decades
Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology 12,2012 © PTPN & Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, Poznań 2012 ALESSANDRO MASTROPIETRO Departament of Humanities, Catania University Contemporary Music in Central Italy: an Overview of Recent Decades ABSTRACT: The present article tries to make thematic the geographical plan of the present volume, by examining the major focal points of Contemporary Music in Central Italy which act as centres dissemi nating compositional trends through a long-established interest in recent music, as well as didactical structures and important teachers. Clearly, Rome is a more influential centre than Florence (where the endemic tendency of Florentine culture towards a sense of order, the settlement there of Dallapiccola, and the rise of a pioneering activity in the field of electronic music since the ‘60s are noteworthy); this is due to the teaching - through different generations - of Petrassi, Guaccero, Donatoni, Corghi and now Fedele, as well as the presence of many musical institutions, and the availability of artists and writers involved in exchanges and collaborations with composers. For this reason, many composers who were educated or active in Rome developed an outstanding - often prophetic - predilection for mix-media or theatrical works. After Bussotti, Guaccero, Macchi and Bertoncini, Giorgio Battistelli is a pivotal figure representing this trend in the next generation of composers; nonetheless an aptitude for it can be perceived also in other composers from both generations (Clementi, Pennisi and Renosto; Sbordoni, Lombardi, Rendine, D’Amico and De Rossi Re), including among the younger ones Silvia Colasanti, Roberta Vacca and Francesco Antonioni. In parallel, electronic music has been cultivated by Evangelisti and Branchi, as a way of renewing musical thought and language from their foundations: researches in the musical application of digital processing have been remarkable in Rome, along with experimentation in real time sound-generation and -transfoimation (Nottoli, Lupone, Di Scipio).
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