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Gian Francesco Malipiero Contemporary Music Studies a Series of Books Edited by Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK

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Gian Francesco Malipiero Contemporary Music Studies a Series of Books Edited by Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK Gian Francesco Malipiero Contemporary Music Studies A series of books edited by Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK Volume 1 Charles Koechlin (1867-1950): His Life and Works Robert Orledge Volume 2 Pierre Boulez - A World of Harmony Lev Koblyakov Volume 3 Bruno Maderna Raymond Fearn Volume 4 What's the Matter with Today's Experimental Music? Organized Sound Too Rarely Heard Leigh Landy Volume 5 Linguistics and Semiotics in Music Raymond Monelle Volume 6 Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion Franr;ois-Bernard Mache Volume 7 The Tone Clock Peter Schat VolumeS Edison Denisov Yuri Kholopov and Valeria Tsenova Volume 9 Hanns Eisler: A Miscellany Edited by David Blake Volume 10 Brian Ferneyhough: Collected Writings Edited by James Boros and Richard Toop Please see the back of this book for other titles in the Contemporary Music Studies series Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973) The Life, Times and Music of a Wayward Genius John C. G. Waterhouse ~l Routledge ~ ~ Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1999 by Harwood Academic Publishers Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1999 by OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) NV Published by license under the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of The Gordon and Breach Publishing Group. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. La musica di Gian Francesco Malipiero, a shorter, and substantially different, Italian version of the present book, was published in 1990 by Nuova ERI (Turin). British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Waterhouse, John C. G. Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973): the life, times and music of a wayward genius. - (Contemporary music studies) 1. Malipiero, Gian Francesco, 1882-1973 2. Composers -Italy - Biography 3. Music - Italy - 20th century I. Title 780.9'2 ISBN 13: 978-9-057-02210-4 (hbk) To the memory of the composer's widow Giulietta Malipiero (t14 October 1996) with affection and gratitude for many things This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction to the series ix List of plates xi Preface xiii Preface to the Italian edition xvii Part One: Life and Times 1 I Introduction 3 II To 1906 5 III 1906-14 13 IV 1914-22 23 V 1922-30 31 VI 1930-39 41 VII 1939-49 53 VIII 1949-60 65 IX 1960-73 75 Part Two: The Works 87 I General characteristics: ideas, obsessions and formative influences 89 II Early works, up to the Poemetti lunari and Impressioni dal vera I 97 III Transition and uncertainty, 1911-15: Impressioni dal vera II 109 IV The years of crisis (1916-19): instrumental works, notably Pause del silenzio I and the Ditirambo tragico 117 V The years of crisis: stage works, especially Pan tea and Sette canzoni; first stock-taking 125 VI Post-war stabilization, 1920-22: Rispetti e strambotti, Tre commedie goldoniane, San Francesco d' Assisi, etc. 137 VII Renewed uncertainty, 1923-7: Le stagioni italiche, Filomela e l'Infatuato, etc. 151 VIII The period of Torneo notturno: 1928-9 163 IX The new manner of the 1930s (1930-33): instrumental music, especially the First Violin Concerto and First Symphony 171 X The operatic crisis at the beginning of the 1930s: I trionfi d' Amore and La favola del figlio cambiato 181 vii viii Contents XI Consolidation of the new manner 0934-40): the Shakespeare and Euripides operas 191 XII Consolidation of the new manner 0934-40): non-theatrical works; second stock-taking 203 XIII 1941-44: the operas, especially I capricci di Callot 213 XIV 1941-44: other works, especially Vergilii Aeneis 221 XV The principal group of symphonies 0945-8) 229 XVI Other works of the period 1945-8, including the Third Piano Concerto and Stradivario 239 XVII The transition to the final period 0): Mondi celesti e infernali and various lesser compositions 0948-50) 245 XVIII The transition to the final period (2): two unnumbered symphonies; EI mondo novo 0950-51) 255 XIX The transition to the final period (3): II figliuol prodigo, Fantasie di ogni giorno, etc. 0952-4) 263 XX The transition to the final period (4): the operas of the years 1953-5, especially Venere prigioniera 273 XXI The Dialoghi 0955-6); third stock-taking 283 XXII L'Ottavo dialogo and the 'rappresentazioni da concerto' 0957-60) 295 XXIII Other works of 1957-60: Notturno di canti e balli, etc. 309 XXIV The early 1960s: non-theatrical works, notably Macchine and Ave Phoebe, dum queror 315 XXV The early 1960s: theatre works, especially Le metamorfosi di Bonaventura 331 XXVI The last years, from 1966 onwards: non-theatrical works, including the last three symphonies and L' Aredodese 343 XXVII The stage works completed in the late 1960s, especially Gli eroi di Bonaventura and Ii marescalco 357 XXVIII Uno dei Dieci and L'Iscariota; fourth stock-taking and epilogue 369 Catalogue of Malipiero's music and books 379 Abbreviations and select bibliography 389 Discography by Peter Bromley 397 Index of Malipiero's work 409 Index of persons 415 Introduction to the series The rapid expansion and diversification of contemporary music is explored in this international series of books for contemporary musicians. Leading experts and practitioners present composition today in all aspects - its techniques, aes­ thetics and technology, and its relationships with other disciplines and currents of thought - as well as using the series to communicate actual musical materials. The series also features monographs on significant twentieth-century com­ posers not extensively documented in the existing literature. Nigel Osborne ix This page intentionally left blank List of Plates (Between pages 85 and 86) 1 Malipiero, c. 1921. 2 Malipiero in Capri, c. 1918. 3 Malipiero with dogs, in his garden at Asolo (early 1930s). 4 Malipiero in 1939. 5 Malipiero at Asolo in the 1960s. 6 Malipiero's mother, Contessa Emma nee Balbi, at Asolo in her last years (late 1930s). 7 Anna Wright Malipiero, the composer's second wife, in their garden at Asolo, 1948. 8 Malipiero and Casella in Venice, 1916. 9 Casella drawn by Malipiero. 10 Casella and Malipiero with Gabriele d' Annunzio, September 1924. 11 Casella and Malipiero with Alban Berg and Franz Werfel, Vienna 1932. 12 Casella and Malipiero with Manuel de Falla, Venice 1932. 13 Malipiero in his house at Asolo, with Mario Labroca and 'The Dancing Barn Owl', c. 1930. 14 Malipiero congratulating Paolo Borciani, leader of the Quartetto Italiano, after a concert (late 1950s). 15 Malipiero's study at Asolo. 16 Pantea: world premiere at the Teatro Goldoni, Venice in September 1932 (the imprisoned Pantea rises from her bed, fascinated by the voices that can be heard outside). 17 Torneo Notturno: world premiere at the Nationaltheater, Munich, in May 1931 (sixth episode, 'The Castle of Boredom': the chatelain, the chatelaine and the fool). The photographs shown in plates 1-15 are now in the Malipiero Archive of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, which has kindly granted permission to reproduce them. xi The publishers report with sadness the untimely death of John C. G. Waterhouse at the time this volume was sent to press. Preface When the Italian version of this book first appeared in 1990, the music of Gian Francesco Malipiero -like that of most of his immediate Italian contemporaries with the single (and only partial) exception of Respighi - had to a large extent fallen into obscurity. In most countries the general music-loving public hardly remembered that he had existed (if it ever knew), and the modest amount of exposure that his compositions enjoyed in Britain during the inter-war period and the immediately post-war years had long since receded into the past. Even professional musicians, though they usually knew his name, were too often con­ tent to accept highly simplified 'received opinions' about him, based on very lim­ ited awareness of the true range of his achievements. Usually the single best known fact about him was that he had edited the only complete published collec­ tion of Monteverdi's surviving works, which, despite the justified reservations of scholars about its evident faults and idiosyncrasies, has won him an honoured place among the pioneers of 20th-century musicology. Even in Italy performances of Malipiero's own music had become rare, despite the continuing advocacy and enthusiasm of a small number of distinguished devotees. Like so many Italian composers (and other artists) of his generation, he had become a victim of a deep national revulsion against the entire fascist period, during which he happened to have arrived at full creative maturity. The vexed question of Malipiero's complex, ambivalent relationship with Mussolini's regime will be discussed at appropriate points later in the book. Suffice it to emphasize here that very few of his compositions reveal any really demonstrable signs of direct influence from the fascist environment, and that the cultural poli­ cies of Italian fascism usually allowed artists far greater creative freedom than was notoriously the case in Nazi Germany. Nevertheless the leading arbiters of Italian public taste from the 1960s onwards have too readily allowed gut reac­ tions to an entire epoch of their country's recent history to colour their attitudes to artists whose mature careers coincided at least partly with that ill-fated time. One of the most damaging effects of the resultant cloud of prejudice and neglect, under which all too many Italian composers of Malipiero's generation had fallen by 1990, was the extreme rarity of commercial recordings of their music, whether in Italy or abroad: to the best of my knowledge, during the 1970s and '80s only one gramophone record devoted exclusively to Malipiero appeared in any country of the world.
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