ALBERTO BRUNI TEDESCHI
Moncalieri, 1915 - Paris, 1996
Alberto Bruni Tedeschi is a unique personality in the
Italian music world: he divided his life between industry,
composition and collecting art. Born in Turin, he studied
composition under Giorgio Federico Ghedini and law at
the same time.
His first opera Villon,
according to a book by Tullio Pinelli (the author of
'La Dolce Vita') was premiered by the great singer Giulietta
Simionato, and the conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni, in
Bergamo in 1941.
In 1948 Hermann Scherchen directed his Variations
for Orchestra at the festival for contemporary
music in Venice and, 3 years later Scherchen christened
his Mass
for the Nyondo Mission in Hamburg. In
1953 he received the 'Premio Trieste' for his symphonic
poem, Birkenhead.
In 1959 artists of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan presented
one of his most important compositions Diagramma
Circolare, dramatic action in two parts
in the Teatro La Fenice in Venice; in this work, Bruni
Tedeschi also wrote the text together with Gian Piero
Bona.
In the same year Alberto Bruni Tedeschi was named manager
of the most important theatre in Italy, the Teatro Regio
in Turin, which he directed until 1971. His impulses
are to be thanked for this theatre being rebuilt and
now being considered one of the most modern opera houses
in Europe.
Among the most important premieres of his works: The
Mass (La Scala, Milan), the ballet Diario
Marino ( Teatro San Carlo, Naples), the
Requiem
without Words (Radio France, Paris),
the piano concert Fantasia,
Recitativo quasi una danza (Santa Cecilia,
Rome), etc.
His opera Paolino,
la Giusta Causa e una Buona Ragione,
which was premiered at the Festival in Spoleto in 1978,
was filmed with the following cast: Charles Aznavour,
Valeria Bruni and Isabel von Karajan.
In 1987 Secondatto
(Acropolis, Nice) was created; this opera may be considered
to be a continuation of Diagramma
Circolare.
His last performance was Il
Mobile Rosso, staged at the Avignon Opera
in 1994: a work whose inspiration lay in his passion
for art and collecting and his long, constant interest
in the world of antiques.
His last composition is the ballet Diario,
Ultime pagine, composed between 1992
and 1994, in which he felt the need to describe the
illness and the end of the life of a man. Immediately
after he fell ill and died in Paris on 17 february 1996.
|