Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic notation, which has often created special problems of interpretation. He was known as a composer for the stage. His first opera was ''

La Passion selon Sade (The Passion according to Sade) is an opera by Sylvano Bussotti who also wrote the libretto, and was the set designer and director. The subtitle is "mistero da camera", describing it as a chamber mystery play. It was Bussotti's first work for the ...

'', premiered in Palermo in 1965. Later operas and ballets were premiered at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Teatro Lirico di Milano,

Teatro Regio di Torino The Teatro Regio (Royal Theatre) is a prominent opera house and opera company in Turin, Piedmont, Italy. Its season runs from October to June with the presentation of eight or nine operas given from five to twelve performances of each. Several bu ...

and Piccola Scala di Milano, among others. He was artistic director of

La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice beca ...

in Venice, the Puccini Festival and the music section of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. He taught internationally, for a decade at the Fiesole School of Music. He is regarded as a leading composer of Italy's avantgarde, and a Renaissance man with many talents who combined the arts expressively.

Life and career

Born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, Bussotti learned to play the violin beginning before the age of five with Margherita Castellani, becoming a prodigy. He was also introduced to painting, by his uncle and his older brother Renzo. At the

Florence Conservatory The Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini is located in piazza delle Belle Arti in Florence. The conservatory, among the most important in Italy, is named after the Florentine composer Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842). History The conservatory occupies pa ...

, he studied harmony and counterpoint with

Roberto Lupi Roberto Lupi (28 November 1908 – 17 April 1971) was an Italian composer, conductor, and music theorist. Born in Milan and trained at the conservatory there, he began his conducting career in 1937. His compositions of experimental music include ...

, and piano with

Luigi Dallapiccola Luigi Dallapiccola (February 3, 1904 – February 19, 1975) was an Italian composer known for his lyrical serialism, twelve-tone compositions. Biography Dallapiccola was born in Pisino d'Istria (at the time part of Austria-Hungary, current ...

, but achieved no diploma due to World War II. He kept studying composition on his own. From 1956, he studied privately in Paris with

Max Deutsch Max Deutsch (17 November 1892 – 22 November 1982) was an Austrian-French composer, conductor, and academic teacher. He studied with Arnold Schönberg and was his assistant. Teaching at the Sorbonne and the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he ...

, and met

Luigi Nono Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music. Biography Early years Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono beg ...

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

and

Heinz-Klaus Metzger Heinz-Klaus Metzger (6 February 1932 – 25 October 2009) was a German music critic and theorist. Born in Konstanz, Metzger studied piano under Carl Seemann in Freiburg im Breisgau and composition under Max Deutsch in Paris. Later, he met Theod ...

who introduced him to the

Darmstädter Ferienkurse Darmstädter Ferienkurse ("Darmstadt Summer Course") is a regular summer event of contemporary classical music in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. It was founded in 1946, under the name "Ferienkurse für Internationale Neue Musik Darmstadt" (Vacation Cou ...

. His first composition performed in public was ''Breve'', played by

Françoise Deslogères Françoise Deslogères (born 9 May 1929 in Boulogne-Billancourt) is a French ondist. Career She studied music ( harmony, piano) with Henri Challan, Geneviève Joy and Jeanne Blancard. She began working on the ondes Martenot in 1957 with inven ...

at a gallery in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

in 1958, with

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

in the audience. In Paris,

Cathy Berberian Catherine Anahid Berberian (July 4, 1925 – March 6, 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henr ...

sang his works, conducted by Boulez. Bussotti travelled to the U.S. in 1964 and 1965, visiting Buffalo and New York invited by the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

. In 1972, he visited Berlin, invited by

German Academic Exchange Service The German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD (german: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), was founded in 1925 and is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation. Organisation ''DAAD'' is a ...

(DAAD) for the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

. As a composer he was influenced by the

twelve-tone music The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...

Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...

and later

. Examples of his use of graphic notation in his pieces, often reflecting his personal life, included ''

'' and ''

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 de ...

''. He was a composer of the Florentine artistic current, that has been active since the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

up to the present, including

Giuseppe Chiari Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (10 March 1654 – 8 September 1727), also known simply as ''Giuseppe Chiari'', was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period, active mostly in Rome. Biography Born in Rome, he was one of the main assistants, alon ...

, Giancarlo Cardini, Albert Mayr,

Marcello Aitiani Marcello Aitiani (Castrovillari, 1951) is an Italian painter and composer. He has carried out musical and classical studies. Graduated in Law, at the same time he dedicated himself to research in the field of visual arts and music, and telematic ...

Sergio Maltagliati Sergio Maltagliati (born 1960 in Pescia, Italy) is an Italians, Italian Internet-based artist, composer, and visual-digital artist. His first musical experience with the Gialdino Gialdini Musical Band was in the early 70s. Biography Sergio Ma ...

, Daniele Lombardi, and

Pietro Grossi Pietro Grossi (15 April 1917, in Venice – 21 February 2002, in Florence) was an Italian composer pioneer of computer music, visual artist and hacker ahead of his time. He began experimenting with electronic techniques in Italy in the early sixt ...

. These musicians experimented with the interaction between sound, sign, and vision, a synaesthetics of art derived from historical avant-gardes, from

Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

to futurism, to

Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and compos ...

and Schoenberg, all the way to

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

Bussotti also pursued other disciplines including painting, graphic art, and journalism. He was a well-known film director, actor, and singer. He wrote most of the

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

s for his operas. As a writer, his style was considered one of the most refined among the Italian poets and novelists of the 20th century. French culture fascinated him since he was a boy. His great friend

(

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled '' Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...

's wife) was one of his most famous interpreters. He was well acquainted with writers and film directors

Aldo Palazzeschi Aldo Palazzeschi (; 2 February 1885 – 17 August 1974) was the pen name of Aldo Giurlani, an Italian novelist, poet, journalist and essayist. Biography He was born in Florence to a well-off, bourgeois family. Following his father's direction, ...

Pier Paolo Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...

Derek Jarman Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, gardener and gay rights activist. Biography Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home ...

Elsa Morante Elsa Morante (; 18 August 191225 November 1985) was an Italian novelist, poet, translator and children's books author. Her novel '' La storia'' (''History'') is included in the Bokklubben World Library List of 100 Best Books of All Time. Life a ...

Alberto Moravia Alberto Moravia ( , ; born Alberto Pincherle ; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990) was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his d ...

Aldo Braibanti Aldo Braibanti (Fiorenzuola d'Arda, September 17, 1922 – Castell'Arquato, April 6, 2014) was an Italian poet, essayist, screenwriter, playwright, director, and visual artist. He fought as a partisan in the Resistance, returning to his intellectua ...

, Mario Zanzotto, Fabio Casadei Turroni,

Dacia Maraini Dacia Maraini (; born November 13, 1936) is an Italian writer. Maraini's work focuses on women's issues, and she has written numerous plays and novels. She has won awards for her work, including the Formentor Prize for ''L'età del malessere'' ...

, and

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

. Jarman was the director of his opera ''L'Ispirazione'', first staged in Florence in 1988. ''Rara Film'' is his most celebrated underground film. The

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

, according to the author's instructions, should be performed, together with the score, played by seven to eleven players. The music of ''Rara Film'' is not a strict counterpoint of the film, flowing without any relation to the images. Bussotti was the stage director of Mussorgsky's ''

The Fair at Sorochyntsi ''The Fair at Sorochyntsi'' (russian: Сорочинская ярмарка, ''Sorochinskaya yarmarka'', '' Sorochyntsi Fair'') is a comic opera in three acts by Modest Mussorgsky, composed between 1874 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The compo ...

'' for

La Scala La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...

in Milan in 1981, followed two years later by Puccini's ''

Il trittico ''Il trittico'' (''The Triptych'') is the title of a collection of three one-act operas, ''Il tabarro'', '' Suor Angelica'', and '' Gianni Schicchi'', by Giacomo Puccini. The work received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on 14 Decemb ...

'', a televised production for which he designed the set of ''

Gianni Schicchi () is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. The work is the third and final part of Puccin ...

''. He served as the artistic director of

in Venice, directed the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, and was director of opera at La Scala. He was head of the music section of the

from 1987. He taught composition, analysis and the history of musical theatre at the Academy of Fine Arts in L'Aquila, at the

Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart is a foundation in Stuttgart, founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1981 to foster international concerts and workshops, namely Musikfest Stuttgart, dedicated especially to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in relati ...

in Stuttgart, at the Royan Festival and from 1980 to 1991 at the Fiesole School of Music. As a personality, he was notoriously flamboyant and occasionally shocking.

Openly gay Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

, Bussotti expressed his sexuality in his music as early as 1958, when it was socially dangerous to do so. His partner and spouse was Rocco Quaglia, a ballet dancer and choreographer with whom he collaborated in many projects. Bussotti died at a nursing home in Milan at age 89 after a long illness, shortly before his 90th birthday.''Mort de Sylvano Bussotti, compositeur, homme de théâtre et provocateur''
on

France Musique France Musique is a French national public radio channel owned and operated by Radio France. It is devoted to the broadcasting of music, both live and recorded, with particular emphasis on European classical music, classical music and jazz. Hist ...

Festivities planned in Florence for the event are held in his memory, titled ''90 Bussotti'', from 20 to 25 September, including performances by , Florence Queer Festival, Fondazione Culturale Stensen, Maschietto Editore, and Tempo Reale, collaborating with

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (English: Florence Musical May) is an annual Italian arts festival in Florence, including a notable opera festival, under the auspices of the Opera di Firenze. The festival occurs between late April into June annual ...

, Bussotti Opera Ballet and the Museo Marino Marini. In Germany, from September 29 to October 1, a scientific conference was held on Bussotti's work, in the course of which the Ensemble E-MEX played two commemorative concerts. This included the first complete performance of Bussotti's "Piêces de Chair II" (1960), sung, among others, by soprano Monica Benvenuti, who had long been closely associated with the composer.

Awards

Bussotti was awarded the ISCM Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1961, 1963 and 1965, then in 1967 the All'Amelia Prize at the

, in 1974 the Toscani d'Oggi Prize, and in 1979 the Psacaropulo Prize.

Works

Music

Most of Bussotti's works were published by

Casa Ricordi Casa Ricordi is a publisher of primarily classical music and opera. Its classical repertoire represents one of the important sources in the world through its publishing of the work of the major 19th-century Italian composers such as Gioachino Ro ...

Stage works

* ''

'' (''mistero da camera''), ''The Passion after Sade (chamber mystery)'' 1965 * ''Lorenzaccio'', premiered at La Fenice in 1972 * ''Bergkristall'' (

balletto Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form o ...

, 1973) * ''Nottetempo'' (dramma lirico), 1976 with at the Teatro Lirico di Milano * ''Oggetto amato'', ballet in one act (1976),at the Teatro Lirico di Milano with

and

Claudio Desderi Claudio Desdèri (9 April 1943 – 30 June 2018) was an Italian baritone and conductor. Life Born in Alessandria, son of Ettore Desderi, he made his debut in 1969 as Gaudenzio in Rossini's ''Il signor Bruschino'' in Edinburgh. A versatile bari ...

* ''La rarità. Potente.'' premiered at the

in 1979 * ''Le Racine'' (''Pianobar pour Phèdre''), chamber opera in a prologue, three acts and an intermezzo for voices, premiered at in Milan in 1980 * ''Fedra'', ''tragedia lirica'', 1988 * ''L'ispirazione'', ''

melodramma ''Melodramma'' (plural: ''melodrammi'') is a 17th-century Italian term for a text to be set as an opera, or the opera itself. In the 19th century, it was used in a much narrower sense by English writers to discuss developments in the early Italia ...

'' in three acts, 1988 * ''Silvano Sylvano. Rappresentazione della vita'', chamber opera in one tempo on words (''testi'') di Sylvano Bussotti (2002–2007)

Other compositions

* Due Voci, for soprano, Martenot waves, and orchestra (text: La Fontaine (1958)) * Sette Fogli, for various solo and group ensembles (1959) * Piêces de Chair II, for piano, baritone, female voice and instruments (1960) * Pour Clavier (1961) * Memories, 5 scenes for mixed choir, soloists and orchestra (texts: Braibanti, Pasolini e.a. (1962)) * La Passion selon Sade, chamber mystery play for voice, mime, actors and instruments (1965) * Marbre, for 11 strings and spinet (1967) * Rara Requiem, for soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone,mixed vocal sextet, choir and instrumental ensemble (1970) * I Semi di Gramsci, symphonic poem for string quartet and orchestra (1971) Score: Ricordi. World premiere: 22 April 1972 (Quartetto Italiano, ?, ?) dedicated to the Quartetto Italiano * Sadun, for 12-part choir (1975) * Amato object ('Bussottioperaballet' (1976)) * Raragramma, for orchestra and violin and flute obbligato. (1980) I. Raragramma; II. L’enfant prodige; III. Paganini; IV. Calando symphony. Score: Ricordi. World premiere: 20 October 1979 (Fabbriciani, SWF Sinfonieorchester, Bour) second part of the cycle "Il catalogo e questo"; dedicated to Romano, Rocco and Luigi Pestalozza and Francesco Degrada * Modello, for violin and orchestra. (1998) World premiere: xx.04.2000 (Agazzini, ?, Tamayo) dedicated to S. Rocco

Novels and poems

Bussotti's writings included: * ''I miei teatri'', Il Novecento edition,

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

, 1982. * ''Letterati Ignoranti, poesie per musica'', Quaderni di Barbablù,

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

, 1986. * ''Sylvano Bussotti, nudi ritratti e disegnini'', sketches with poems by Romani Brizzi, Trucchi e Bussotti, Il polittico edition, Rome, 1991. * ''Non fare il minimo rumore'', Girasole Edition,

Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...

, 1997. * ''Disordine alfabetico'', Spirali Edition, Milan, 2002. * ''La calligrafia di un romanzo uno e due'', novel in ''Peccati veniali'', a cura di A. Veneziani, Coniglio editore, Rome, 2004. * ''L'acuto'', in Angelo d'Edimburgo by Fabio Casadei Turroni, Le Mondine Edition, Molinella, 2006. * ''I Mozart vanno vanno'', interludio in ''La notte delle dissonanze'', by , EDT, Turin, 2007.

Discography

*''Suono, segno, gesto visione a Firenze'' (Sound, sign, gesture, vision in Florence) **(CD 1):

Sylvano Bussotti Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic n ...

, Giancarlo Cardini,

, Daniele Lombardi **(CD 2):

, Giuseppe Chiari, Giancarlo Cardini, Albert Mayr, Daniele Lombardi,

(Atopos music 1999-2008).
The path of more than fifty years of musical culture in Florence, since the end of the Second World War, is documented in these two audio CDs. This audio recording contains the meeting of composers and pianists who are the protagonists of the Music of Art in Florence, a significant phenomenon in the history of the second half of the twentieth century.Suono Segno Gesto Visione a Firenze 2
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Notes and references

Notes References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bussotti, Sylvano 1931 births 2021 deaths 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers LGBT classical composers LGBT musicians from Italy Musicians from Florence Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen 20th-century Italian composers Pupils of Max Deutsch 20th-century Italian male musicians 21st-century Italian male musicians Gay musicians