Giorgio Federico Ghedini (11 July 189225 March 1965) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Life

Ghedini was born in Cuneo

Cuneo

Cuneo is a city and comune in Piedmont, Northern Italy, the capital of the province of Cuneo, the third largest of Italy’s provinces by area...

 in 1892. He studied organ, piano and composition in Turin, then graduated in composition in Bologna under Marco Enrico Bossi

Marco Enrico Bossi

Marco Enrico Bossi was an Italian organist, composer, improviser and pedagogue.-Life:Bossi was born in Salò, a town in the province of Brescia, Lombardy, into a family of musicians. His father, Pietro, was organist at Salò Cathedral, which has a one-manual organ built by Fratelli Serassi from 1865...

 in 1911. He worked as conductor for a certain time, then he gave up to devote himself to teaching.

He worked as a teacher of composition in Turin (1918-1937), Parma (1937-1941), and finally Milan, where he directed the local Conservatory (1951-1962). Among his pupils, the most eminent were Marcello

Marcello Abbado

Marcello Abbado is an Italian composer, conductor, and pianist. His compositional output includes several orchestral works, a ballet, numerous pieces for solo piano, and a number of chamber works. He has collaborated on several compositions with Roberto Goitre...

 and Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...

, Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

, Guido Cantelli

Guido Cantelli

Guido Cantelli was an Italian orchestral conductor.-Biography:Born in Novara, Italy, Cantelli was named Musical Director of La Scala, Milan on 16 November 1956 but his promising career was cut short only one week later by his death at the age of 36 in an aircraft crash in Paris, France.Cantelli...

, Niccolò Castiglioni

Niccolò Castiglioni

Niccolò Castiglioni was an Italian composer, pianist, and writer on music.Castiglioni was born and raised in Milan, where he began studying piano at the age of 7. He received his performer's diploma from the Milan Conservatory in 1952, and graduated there in composition in 1953...

, Carlo Pinelli, and Fiorenzo Carpi.

Guido Cantelli

Guido Cantelli

Guido Cantelli was an Italian orchestral conductor.-Biography:Born in Novara, Italy, Cantelli was named Musical Director of La Scala, Milan on 16 November 1956 but his promising career was cut short only one week later by his death at the age of 36 in an aircraft crash in Paris, France.Cantelli...

 conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra

NBC Symphony Orchestra

The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra established by David Sarnoff of the National Broadcasting Company especially for conductor Arturo Toscanini...

 in a broadcast concert of Ghedini's Pezzo concertante for two violins, viola, and orchestra.

He died in Nervi

Nervi

Nervi is a former fishing village 12 miles Northwest of Portofino, now a seaside resort in Liguria, in northwest Italy. Once an independent comune, it is now a quartiere of Genoa. Nervi is 7 km east of central Genoa.-Geography:...

, near Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, in 1965.

Style

The composer was a deep lover of ancient music; in fact, he transcribed many works by such composers as Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...

, Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

, and Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...

. Ghedini's works are often inspired by music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, but combined with a very personal language which combines ancient and modern styles. Among his masterworks are a "Concerto for orchestra" (in memory of Guido Cantelli

Guido Cantelli

Guido Cantelli was an Italian orchestral conductor.-Biography:Born in Novara, Italy, Cantelli was named Musical Director of La Scala, Milan on 16 November 1956 but his promising career was cut short only one week later by his death at the age of 36 in an aircraft crash in Paris, France.Cantelli...

), two violin concertos "Il Belprato" and "Concentus Basiliensis", and a concerto for two cellos "L'Olmeneta" and "Musica Notturna" (Night Music). Ghedini's most celebrated concert piece is "Concerto dell'Albatro" (Albatross Concerto) for violin, cello, piano, narrator and orchestra, which includes fragments from Herman Melville

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....

's Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...

) in its final movement.

He wrote a large number of chamber, vocal and choral works.

Works

• Marinaresca e bacchanale for orchestra (1933)
• Concerto dell'albatro (1943)
• Violin Concerto "Il belprato"
• Concerto for viola, viola d'amore, and string orchestra
• Studio da concerto, for guitar
• "Musica concertante" for Cello and Orchestra
• "Invenzione" Concerto for Cello, Orchestra, Timpani and Cymbals
• "Concerto" two Cellos and Orchestra
• Musica da Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra (1953)
• Pezzo Concertante for 2 Violins, Viola and Orchestra (1931)
• Concertato for Flute, Viola and Harp (1941)
• Contrappunti for violin, viola, cello and orchestra (1962)

Operas

• Gringoire (1915)
• Maria d'Alessandria (1937)
• Re Hassan (1939)
• La Pulce d'oro (1940)
• Le Baccanti (1948)
• Billy Budd (1949)
• Lord Inferno (1952)
• Girotondo (1959)
• La via della croce (1961)

External links

• Biographical sketch at Operone.De