Raymond Fearn – författare

The first English work dealing in detail with the life and musical influences of the Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975).Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) was one of the most important Italian composers of the twentieth century. As well as writing several operas, he composed a large number of works in which the human voice, whether in solo or in chorus, plays an important role. Dallapiccola also set texts by writers as diverse as James Joyce, Salvatore Quasimodo, Antonio Machado, Goethe, and Heine. This book is the first in English to deal with Dallapiccola as a whole, from thefirst, hesitant vocal compositions of his student years up to the works of his last decade, in which Italian lyricism is combined with great formal rigor. The author suggests that Dallapiccola should be understood not only as aninfluential figure in the post-war developments of Italian music, but also as one who renewed and revitalized the older traditions of Italian music.Raymond Fearn is Professor of Music, Keele University.

First published in 1988. Italy, the birthplace of opera in the late sixteenth century, has in recent decades seen remarkable and vital musical growth, with composers as diverse as Luciano Berio and Nino Rota, Luigi Nono and Sylvano Bussotti, Giacomo Manzoni, Bruno Maderna and Salvatore Sciarrino. The musical theatre has figured prominently in the work of Italian composers during this period, ranging from operas conceived in a traditional mode to works of a Music Theatre variety, and in style from popular to avant-garde. In this book Raymond Fearn surveys this Italian musico-theatrical phenomenon in the period since the Second World War, examining a wide range of works such as Nono's Intolleranza and Al Gran Sole Carico d'Amore, Berio's Passaggio and Un re in ascolto, Manzoni's Atomtod and La Sentenza and Castiglioni's Oberon and The King's Masque, and places these developments within a cultural and theatrical context