Vittorio Giannini
Encyclopedia
Vittorio Giannini was a neoromantic American
composer
of operas, songs, symphonies, and band works.
ist under the tutelage of his mother; he would go on to study violin and composition at the Milan Conservatory
on scholarship, and then to take his graduate degree at the Juilliard School
. He would return to Juilliard to teach, moving on to the Manhattan School of Music
and the Curtis Institute of Music
. His students included Nicolas Flagello
, David Amram
, Mark Bucci
, Alfred Reed
, Anthony Iannaccone
, M. William Karlins
, Irwin Swack
, John Corigliano
, Adolphus Hailstork
, Thomas Pasatieri
, Avraham Sternklar, and Nancy Bloomer Deussen. Giannini was the founder and first president of the North Carolina School of the Arts
in 1965, which he envisioned as a type of Juilliard of the South, bringing artists such as cellist Janos Starker
and violinist Ruggiero Ricci
to teach there. He remained there until his death (Simmons 2001).
Giannini's father, Ferruccio Giannini, was an opera
singer and founder of the Verdi Opera House in Philadelphia, as were as his two sisters. Euphemia Giannini Gregory taught Voice at the Curtis Institute for 40 years counting among her students the opera divas Anna Moffo
and Judith Blegen
. In fact, it was his sister, Dusolina Giannini
, who was a pivotal figure in the success of his operas. Dusolina was a dramatic soprano
and prima donna
who played such roles as Aida and Donna Anna throughout Europe, until moving to the United States to sing with the Metropolitan Opera
and finally to spend her remaining years teaching. Her career was already well underway when Vittorio wished to premiere his first opera, Lucedia and it was her influence that led to its production in 1934. Four years later she would create the role of Hester Prynne in his opera from Nathaniel Hawthorne
's The Scarlet Letter
(adapted by Karl Flaster). Both operas would be successful, as would most of his later operas (though two, Casanova and Christus, remain unperformed).
His partnership with poet Karl Flaster was a fruitful one. In addition to his work on The Scarlet Letter, Flaster was the librettist
for several of Giannini's operas, including Lucedia and The Harvest. Also, Flaster collaborated with Giannini on many of his most successful art songs, including "Tell Me, Oh Blue Blue Sky"; many of these songs are now staples of vocal recitalists' repertoire.
Though it was his vocal and operatic writing which earned him greatest renown, Giannini also composed several symphonies, concerti, works for the wind band
(for which his Symphony no. 3 was written), and wrote several solo piano and chamber works. Despite this wide range of output, most of his work is seldom performed, and little of it has been recorded.
and twelve-tone composition. His main influences were the composers of the late Romantic period, particularly the romanticism of Puccini and the chromaticism of Richard Wagner
; as Giannini's style developed it grew in darkness, intensity, and tonal adventurousness, exploring dissonance without succumbing to modernism. In general Giannini's works were well-received; the modernists
, however, held his music in little regard.
Giannini's works, particularly the later vocal works, are regarded as prime examples of the American neoromantic style; others of the American neoromantic school include Samuel Barber
and Howard Hanson
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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 operas, songs, symphonies, and band works.
Life and work
Giannini began as a violinViolin
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....
ist under the tutelage of his mother; he would go on to study violin and composition at the Milan Conservatory
Milan Conservatory
The Milan Conservatory is a college of music which was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year with premises in the cloisters of the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Passione. There were initially 18 boarders,...
on scholarship, and then to take his graduate degree at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
. He would return to Juilliard to teach, moving on to the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
and the Curtis Institute of Music
Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music is a conservatory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that offers courses of study leading to a performance Diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in Opera, and Professional Studies Certificate in Opera. According to statistics compiled by U.S...
. His students included Nicolas Flagello
Nicolas Flagello
Nicolas Flagello , was an American composer of classical music.Flagello was born in New York City, into a very musical family. His brother Ezio Flagello was a bass who sang at the Metropolitan Opera. One of his first music teachers was the composer Vittorio Giannini, and he then studied at the...
, David Amram
David Amram
David Amram is an American composer, musician, conductor, and writer. As a classical composer and performer, his integration of jazz , ethnic and folk music has led him to work with the likes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Willie Nelson, Langston...
, Mark Bucci
Mark Bucci
Mark Bucci was an American composer, lyricist, and dramatist. Influenced by Giacomo Puccini, his work is composed in a contemporary yet lyrical style which frequently employs marked rhythms and memorable harmonies and melodies.-Career:Bucci studied music composition with Tibor Serly in New York...
, Alfred Reed
Alfred Reed
Alfred Reed was one of North America's most prolific and frequently performed composers, with more than two hundred published works for concert band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensemble to his name...
, Anthony Iannaccone
Anthony Iannaccone
Anthony Iannaccone is a composer and conductor. His music has been performed by major orchestras and chamber ensembles, and he has conducted numerous regional and metropolitan orchestras in the United States and in Europe...
, M. William Karlins
M. William Karlins
Martin William Karlins was an American composer of contemporary classical music....
, Irwin Swack
Irwin Swack
Irwin Swack was an American composer of contemporary classical music.He held degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music , the Juilliard School, Northwestern University , and Columbia University...
, John Corigliano
John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...
, Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork is an American composer and educator. He grew up in Albany, New York, where he studied violin, piano, organ, and voice....
, Thomas Pasatieri
Thomas Pasatieri
Thomas Pasatieri is an American opera composer.He began composing at age 10 and, as a teenager, studied with Nadia Boulanger...
, Avraham Sternklar, and Nancy Bloomer Deussen. Giannini was the founder and first president of the North Carolina School of the Arts
North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
in 1965, which he envisioned as a type of Juilliard of the South, bringing artists such as cellist Janos Starker
János Starker
János Starker |Kingdom of Hungary]]) is a Hungarian-American cellist. Since 1958 he has taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he holds the title of Distinguished Professor.- Child prodigy :...
and violinist Ruggiero Ricci
Ruggiero Ricci
Ruggiero Ricci is an Italian-American violinist known for performances and recordings of the works of Paganini. He was born in San Bruno, California. Ricci's brother was cellist and his sister Emma played violin with the New York Metropolitan Opera.He is the son of Italian immigrants. His...
to teach there. He remained there until his death (Simmons 2001).
Giannini's father, Ferruccio Giannini, was an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer and founder of the Verdi Opera House in Philadelphia, as were as his two sisters. Euphemia Giannini Gregory taught Voice at the Curtis Institute for 40 years counting among her students the opera divas Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
and Judith Blegen
Judith Blegen
Judith Blegen is an American soprano, particularly associated with light lyric roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.-Life and career:Blegen was raised and attended high school in Missoula, Montana...
. In fact, it was his sister, Dusolina Giannini
Dusolina Giannini
Dusolina Giannini was an Italian-American soprano, particularly associated with the Italian repertory....
, who was a pivotal figure in the success of his operas. Dusolina was a dramatic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and prima donna
Prima donna
Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...
who played such roles as Aida and Donna Anna throughout Europe, until moving to the United States to sing with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
and finally to spend her remaining years teaching. Her career was already well underway when Vittorio wished to premiere his first opera, Lucedia and it was her influence that led to its production in 1934. Four years later she would create the role of Hester Prynne in his opera from Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
's The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an...
(adapted by Karl Flaster). Both operas would be successful, as would most of his later operas (though two, Casanova and Christus, remain unperformed).
His partnership with poet Karl Flaster was a fruitful one. In addition to his work on The Scarlet Letter, Flaster was the librettist
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for several of Giannini's operas, including Lucedia and The Harvest. Also, Flaster collaborated with Giannini on many of his most successful art songs, including "Tell Me, Oh Blue Blue Sky"; many of these songs are now staples of vocal recitalists' repertoire.
Though it was his vocal and operatic writing which earned him greatest renown, Giannini also composed several symphonies, concerti, works for the wind band
Concert band
A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...
(for which his Symphony no. 3 was written), and wrote several solo piano and chamber works. Despite this wide range of output, most of his work is seldom performed, and little of it has been recorded.
Musical style
Giannini is linked to the Romantic tradition, particularly considering that most of his American musical contemporaries were exploring the realms of neoclassicismNeoclassicism (music)
Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint...
and twelve-tone composition. His main influences were the composers of the late Romantic period, particularly the romanticism of Puccini and the chromaticism of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
; as Giannini's style developed it grew in darkness, intensity, and tonal adventurousness, exploring dissonance without succumbing to modernism. In general Giannini's works were well-received; the modernists
Modernism (music)
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...
, however, held his music in little regard.
Giannini's works, particularly the later vocal works, are regarded as prime examples of the American neoromantic style; others of the American neoromantic school include Samuel Barber
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...
and Howard Hanson
Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...
.
Selected works
- Stabat mater (1922), SATB and orchestra
- "Tell Me, O Blue, Blue Sky" (1927), voice/piano
- String Quartet (1930)
- Suite (1931), orchestra
- Piano Quintet (1932)
- Lucedia (1934), opera, libretto K. Flaster
- Piano Concerto (1935)
- Symphony ‘In memoriam Theodore Roosevelt’ (1935)
- Organ Concerto (1937)
- Triptych (1937), soprano choir and strings
- IBM Symphony (1937), orchestra
- Requiem (1937), choir and orchestra
- The Scarlet Letter (1938), opera, libretto Flaster after N. Hawthorne
- Beauty and the Beast(1938), opera in one act
- BlennerhassettBlennerhassett (opera)Blennerhassett is a brief opera in one act by American composer Vittorio Giannini with a libretto by Phillip Roll and Norman Corwin. It was commissioned by CBS radio as part of the Columbia Composers Commission, and received its premiere in a radio broadcast on November 2, 1939. Blennerhassett...
(1939), opera in one act - Sonata no. 1 (1940), violin and piano
- "Sing to My Heart a Song" (c. 1942), voice/piano
- Sonata no. 2 (1944), violin and piano
- Variations on a Cantus firmus (1947), piano
- The Taming of the Shrew (1950), opera, libretto by Giannini and D. Fee after Shakespeare
- Symphony no. 1 ‘Sinfonia’ (1950)
- Divertimento no. 1 (1953), orchestra
- Symphony no. 2 (1955), orchestra
- Prelude and Fugue (1955), string orchestra
- Preludium and Allegro (1958), symphonic band
- Symphony no. 3 (1958), symphonic band
- Symphony no. 4 (1959), orchestra
- The Medead (1960), soprano and orchestra
- The Harvest (1961), opera, libretto Flaster
- Divertimento no. 2 (1961), orchestra
- Antigone (1962), soprano and orchestra
- Psalm cxxx (1963), bass/cello and orchestra
- Variations and Fugue (1964), symphonic band
- Symphony no. 5 (1965)
- Servant of Two Masters (1966), opera, libretto B. Stambler, after C. Goldoni
Further reading
- Simmons, Walter G., "Vittorio Giannini". [2005]. Grove Music Online (subscription access)
- Haskell, Harry and Walter G. Simmons. [n.d.]. "Vittorio Giannini". Grove Music Online (OperaBase) (subscription access)
- Schaunseer, Max de. "Dusolina Giannini". Grove Music Online (subscription access)
- Simmons, Walter. 2004. Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.