Pizzetti, Ildebrando (1880–1968)

Italian composer. He is remarkable as a composer of serious, heroic, rather austere operas, for which he wrote his own libretti, except for the first, Fedra (produced in 1915), which is by Gabriele d'Annunzio. He also wrote incidental music for plays, film music, choral and orchestral works, chamber music, and songs.

Pizzetti was born at Parma. The son of a piano teacher, he studied at Parma Conservatory 1895–1901. In 1908 he was appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Istituto Musicale at Florence, of which he became director in 1917. In 1924 he was appointed director of the Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi, Milan, and in 1936 he succeeded Ottorino Respighi as professor of advanced composition at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Works Stage operas Fedra (1915), Debora e Jaele (1922), Lo straniero, Fra Gherardo (1928), Ifigenia (radio opera, 1950), Assassinio nella cattedrale (after T S Eliot, 1958); incidental music for La Nave and La Pisanella (both by d'Annunzio).

Orchestral works three symphonic preludes for Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Coloneus (1903), Concerto dell' estate (1928), Rondo veneziano (1929).

Chorus and orchestra Missa di Requiem (1922) and De profundis for unaccompanied chorus (1937); Due compositioni corali (1961); Cantico di gloria (1966).

Chamber two string quartets (1906, 1933), piano trio; sonatas for violin and piano and for cello and piano; songs, including Due Poesie di Ungaretti for baritone and piano trio, three with string quartet, and 21 with piano, including I Pastori and Altre cinque liriche.