(b Parma, 20 Sept 1880; d Rome, 13 Feb 1968). Italian composer. He studied at the Parma Conservatory (1895-1901), then taught at Florence (1908-24) Milan (1924-36) and the Accademia di S Cecilia, Rome (1936-58). He was also active as a music critic. A serious-minded conservative, he looked for a renewal of Italian opera on the basis of a flexible arioso developed from Wagner, Debussy and Musorgksy and in some ways looking back to Florentine monody, as well as using imaginative choral writing: his main works in this genre include his first two operas, Fedra and Debora e Jaele, and especially Assassinio nella cattedrale. He also wrote an unaccompanied Requiem, one of his several unaccompanied choral works to demonstrate his sympathy for the expressive power of vocal polyphony.

works:
Operas

• Fedra (1915)
• Debora e Jaele (1922)
• Lo straniero (1930)
• Fra Gherardo (1928)
• Orséolo (1935)
• L′oro (1947)
• Vanna Lupa (1949) Ifigenia (1950)
• Cagliostro (1953)
• La figlia di Iorio (1954)
• Assassinio nella cattedrale (1958)
• Il calzare d′argento (1961)
• Clitennestra (1965)
• incidental music

• Per l′Edipo re di Sofocle, 3 preludes (1903)
• Conc., dell′estate (1928)
• Canti della stagione alta, pf, orch (1930)
• Vc Conc., C (1934)
• Sym., A (1940)
• Vn Conc., A (1944)
• Preludio a un altro giorno (1952)
• Harp Conc., B♭ (1960)

• 2 canzoni corali (1913)
• canto d′amore, male vv (1914)
• Messa di requiem (1922)
• De profundis (1937)
• Epithalamium, orch (1939)
• 3 composizioni corali (1943)
• Cantico di gloria, 3 choruses, wind, 2 pf, perc (1948)
• Vanitas vanitatum, solo vv, male chorus, orch (1958)
• 2 composizioni corali (1961)
• Filiae Jerusalem, S, female chorus, orch (1966)

• 3 liriche (1904)
• 5 liriche (incl. I pastori, 1908-15)
• Erotica (1911)
• 2 liriche drammatiche napoletane (1918)
• 3 sonetti di Petrarca (1922)
• Altre 5 liriche (1933)
• 3 liriche (1944)
• 3 canti d′amore (1960)

• 2 str qts, A (1906), D (1933)
• Vn Sonata, A (1919)
• Vc Sonata, F (1921)
• Pf Trio, A (1925)
• pf music (incl. Sonata, 1942).

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.