Paolo Isotta (18 October 1950 – 12 February 2021) was an Italian musicologist and writer.

Life

Isotta graduated from the University of Naples, where he studied classic Letters and law. He also studied piano with Vincenzo Vitale and composition with Renato Parodi and

Renato Dionisi Renato Dionisi (born 21 November 1947) is an Italian former pole vaulter. He was born in Riva del Garda. He set a career best of in Rovereto on 25 June 1972. Biography He won five medals at the International athletics competitions. He represent ...

. From 1971 to 1994, he was ordinary professor of history of music in the Conservatory of Turin and Naples. In February 2019, he was named Professor Emeritus. He was the musical critic for the Italian newspaper ''

Corriere della Sera The ''Corriere della Sera'' (; en, "Evening Courier") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan with an average daily circulation of 410,242 copies in December 2015. First published on 5 March 1876, ''Corriere della Sera'' is one of It ...

'' from 1980 to 2015 and for other journals such as '' Il Giornale''. In 2013 he published a critical article against Daniel Harding and, indirectly, Claudio Abbado, following which

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's director, banned him from the theatre. He wrote several books of musical criticism, among these one on the influence of the music in the Works of

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and one which is the first ever written about the influence of the poetry of Ovid on music from XV to XXI century.

Decorations and awards

*2006: Italian Order of Merit for Culture and Art *2017: Isaiah Berlin Prize

Works

*''Antonio Caldara: problemi e prospettive'' (1971) *''I diamanti della corona. Grammatica del Rossini napoletano'' (1974) *''I sentieri della musica'' (1978) *''Dixit Dominus Domino meo. Struttura e semantica in Haendel e Vivaldi'' (1980) *''Il ventriloquo di Dio: Thomas Mann e la musica nell'opera letteraria'' (1983) *''Le ali di Wieland'' (1984) *''Per una lettura de "Il Turco in Italia"'', (1985) *''Protagonisti della musica'' (1988) *''Victor de Sabata: un compositore'' (1992) *''Omaggio a Renata Tebaldi'' (2002) *''La virtù dell'elefante'' (Marsilio, 2014) *''Altri canti di Marte'' (Marsilio, 2015) *''La bellezza nell'estetica dei 'Meistersinger' di Richard Wagner'' (2016) *''Paisiello e il mito di Fedra'' (2016) *''Othello: Shakespeare, Napoli, Rossini'' (2016) *''Jérusalem: Verdi et la persécution de l'honneur'' (Liège, 2017) *''Il canto degli animali. I nostri fratelli e i loro sentimenti in musica e in poesia'' (Marsilio, 2017) *''De Parthenopes musices disciplina. L'educazione musicale a Napoli dal Medio Evo ai giorni nostri'' (Napoli, 2018) *''"Non si pasce di cibo mortale chi si pasce di cibo celeste". Il convito e la fame tra mito, musica, poesia e teatro napoletano'' (Ariano Irpino, 2018) *''La dotta lira. Ovidio e la musica'' (Marsilio, 2018) *''La tradizione napoletana dei Responsori per la Settimana Santa. Tenebra della Passione e luce di Leonardo Leo,'' "Napoli Nobilissima", 2018 *''Rossini 1868-2018. Schizzo per un ritratto,'' Roma, 2018 *''La rivoluzione estetica del "Rigoletto",'' Roma 2019 *Osmo, musica, uomo nell'antichità e Dante, Ariano Irpito, Edizioni Biogem, 2019 *''Verdi a Parigi'', Venezia, Marsilio, 2020

References

Sources

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Isotta, Paolo 1950 births 2021 deaths Writers from Naples Italian essayists Italian columnists Italian male non-fiction writers Male essayists Recipients of the Italian Order of Merit for Culture and Art University of Naples Federico II alumni 20th-century essayists 20th-century Italian male writers 21st-century Italian essayists 21st-century Italian male writers 20th-century Italian musicologists 21st-century musicologists