Sylvano Bussotti
Encyclopedia
Sylvano Bussotti is an Italian
composer
of contemporary music
whose work is unusually notated and often creates special problems of interpretation.
Born in Florence
, Bussotti learned to play the violin
as a child, becoming a prodigy. Later he studied at the Florence Conservatory (where he developed an opposition to modernism
), with Luigi Dallapiccola
and with Max Deutsch
in Paris
. As a composer he was influenced by the twelve-tone music of Webern
and later John Cage
. Examples of his use of graphic notation
in his pieces, often reflecting his personal life, include Lorenzaccio
and La passion selon Sade. He pursues other disciplines including painting, graphic art, and journalism.
Bussotti is also a well-known film director, actor, and singer. His uncle Tono Zancanaro and his older brother Renzo Bussotti strongly influenced his style in painting. He has written most of the librettos of his Operas. As a writer, his style is considered one of the most refined among the Italian poets and novelists of 20th century. French culture has fascinated him since he was a boy. His great friend Cathy Berberian (Luciano Berio
's wife) was one of his most famous interpreters. He was, or is, well acquainted with writers and film directors Aldo Palazzeschi
, Pier Paolo Pasolini
, Derek Jarman
, Elsa Morante
, Alberto Moravia
, Aldo Braibanti, Mario Zanzotto, Fabio Casadei Turroni
, Dacia Maraini
, Umberto Eco
. Derek Jarman was the director of his opera L'Ispirazione, first staged in Florence in 1988. Rara Film is his most celebrated underground film. The film, according to the author's instructions, should be performed, together with the score, which includes from seven to eleven players. The music of Rara Film is not a strict counterpoint of the film, flowing without any relation to the images.
He has served as the artistic director of La Fenice
, Venice
. As a personality he is notoriously flamboyant and occasionally shocking. He staged a high-profile resignation from the Venice Biennale in 1991 by bringing in a famous prostitute to give the keynote speech. Outspoken and openly gay, Bussotti expressed his sexuality in his music as early as 1958.
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...
of contemporary music
20th century classical music
20th century classical music was without a dominant style and highly diverse.-Introduction:At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of Post-Romantic Symphonic writing...
whose work is unusually notated and often creates special problems of interpretation.
Born in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Bussotti learned to play the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
as a child, becoming a prodigy. Later he studied at the Florence Conservatory (where he developed an opposition to modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
), with Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.-Biography:Dallapiccola was born at Pisino d'Istria , to Italian parents....
and with Max Deutsch
Max Deutsch
Max Deutsch was an Austrian-French musical composer, conductor, and teacher.He was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg and founded the theater Der Jüdische Spiegel in Paris. Here, many works of composers like Schoenberg, Anton Webern, or Alban Berg were debuted in France...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. As a composer he was influenced by the twelve-tone music of Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
and later John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
. Examples of his use of graphic notation
Graphic notation
Graphic notation is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation. Graphic notation evolved in the 1950s, and it is often used in combination with traditional music notation...
in his pieces, often reflecting his personal life, include Lorenzaccio
Lorenzaccio
Lorenzaccio is a French play of the Romantic period written by Alfred de Musset in 1834, set in 16th-century Florence, and depicting Lorenzino de' Medici, who killed Florence's tyrant, Alessandro de' Medici, his cousin. Having engaged in debaucheries to gain the Duke's confidence, he loses the...
and La passion selon Sade. He pursues other disciplines including painting, graphic art, and journalism.
Bussotti is also a well-known film director, actor, and singer. His uncle Tono Zancanaro and his older brother Renzo Bussotti strongly influenced his style in painting. He has written most of the librettos of his Operas. As a writer, his style is considered one of the most refined among the Italian poets and novelists of 20th century. French culture has fascinated him since he was a boy. His great friend Cathy Berberian (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...
's wife) was one of his most famous interpreters. He was, or is, well acquainted with writers and film directors Aldo Palazzeschi
Aldo Palazzeschi
Aldo Palazzeschi was the pen name of Aldo Giurlani, an Italian novelist, poet, journalist and essayist.-Biography:...
, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
, Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
, Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante was an Italian novelist, perhaps best known for her novel La storia .-Biography:...
, Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
, Aldo Braibanti, Mario Zanzotto, Fabio Casadei Turroni
Fabio Casadei Turroni
Fabio Casadei Turroni is an Italian novelist, musicologist and journalist. Son of the painter Rino Casadei Turroni, he studied singing and got his bachelor's degree as a musicologist at the Department of Art and Music at Bologna State University. He then established himself as a lyrical tenor...
, Dacia Maraini
Dacia Maraini
Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer. She is the daughter of Sicilian Princess Topazia Alliata di Salaparuta, an artist and art dealer, and of Fosco Maraini, a Florentine ethnologist and mountaineer of mixed Ticinese, English and Polish background who wrote in particular on Tibet and Japan...
, Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
. Derek Jarman was the director of his opera L'Ispirazione, first staged in Florence in 1988. Rara Film is his most celebrated underground film. The film, according to the author's instructions, should be performed, together with the score, which includes from seven to eleven players. The music of Rara Film is not a strict counterpoint of the film, flowing without any relation to the images.
He has served as the artistic director of La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. As a personality he is notoriously flamboyant and occasionally shocking. He staged a high-profile resignation from the Venice Biennale in 1991 by bringing in a famous prostitute to give the keynote speech. Outspoken and openly gay, Bussotti expressed his sexuality in his music as early as 1958.
Music
- 5 Piano Pieces for David Tudor (1959)
- Pour Clavier (1961)
- Torso (1963)
- La Passion selon Sade (1966)
- Rara Requiem (1969)
- Poesia di De Pisis (1975)
- Lorenzaccio (1972)
- Nottetempo (1976)
- La Racine (1980)
- Fogli d'Album (1984)
- L'Ispirazione (1988)
- Fedra (1988)
- Il Catalogo È Questo (1979–88)
- Mozartiane I (2006)
- Mozartiane II (2007)
- SilvanoSylvano (2007)
- Rara Film (1964, revised 2008)
Novels and poems
- I miei teatri, Il Novecento edition, PalermoPalermoPalermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, 1982. - Letterati Ignoranti, poesie per musica, Quaderni di Barbablù, SienaSienaSiena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
, 1986. - Sylvano Bussotti, nudi ritratti e disegnini, sketches with poems by Romani Brizzi, Trucchi e Bussotti, Il polittico edition, Roma, 1991.
- Non fare il minimo rumore, Girasole Edition, RavennaRavennaRavenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...
, 1997. - Disordine alfabetico, Spirali Edition, Milano, 2002.
- La calligrafia di un romanzo uno e due, novel in Peccati veniali, a cura di A. Veneziani, Coniglio editore, Roma, 2004.
- L'acuto, in Angelo d'Edimburgo by Fabio Casadei TurroniFabio Casadei TurroniFabio Casadei Turroni is an Italian novelist, musicologist and journalist. Son of the painter Rino Casadei Turroni, he studied singing and got his bachelor's degree as a musicologist at the Department of Art and Music at Bologna State University. He then established himself as a lyrical tenor...
, Le Mondine Edition, Molinella, 2006. - I Mozart vanno vanno, interludio in La notte delle dissonanze, by Sandro Cappelletto, EDTEDTEDT may refer to:* Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, or EDTA, a chemical widely used within medicine, science and industry.* Eastern Daylight Time , a time zone observed in North America* AEDT or Australian Eastern Daylight Time...
, Torino, 2007.
Further Reading
- Maehder, Jürgen. 1992. ""Bussotti, Sylvano". The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, 4 vols., edited by Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
. London: Macmillan Publishers. - Osmond-Smith, David. 2001. "Bussotti, Sylvano". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
and John TyrrellJohn Tyrrell (professor of music)John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
. London: Macmillan Publishers. - Stoïanova, Ivanka. 2005. "Sylvano Bussotti: B. O. B.—Bussottioperaballet/Stratégies dissipatives dans Questo fauno et Tieste". In Musiques vocales en Italie depuis 1945, edited by Pierre Michel and Gianmario Borio, 29–60. Collection Recherche, edited by Sophie Stevance. Notre Dame de Bliquetuit: Millénaire III Éditions. ISBN 2-911906-11-X.
- Fabio Casadei TurroniFabio Casadei TurroniFabio Casadei Turroni is an Italian novelist, musicologist and journalist. Son of the painter Rino Casadei Turroni, he studied singing and got his bachelor's degree as a musicologist at the Department of Art and Music at Bologna State University. He then established himself as a lyrical tenor...
. 2011. "Uccidere Bussotti", edited by ilmiolibro.it, ISBN 2-120005685913.