Casella, Alfredo (EN)

Casella Alfredo, *25 July 1883 Turin, †5 March 1947 Rome, Italian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, critic and music editor. He came from a family of professional musicians: his father – Carlo Casella – taught cello at the Liceo Musicale in Turin, and his mother – Maria Bordino – was a pianist. Casello took piano lessons from her, starting from the age of 5. At 11, he made his first public appearance at a concert organised by the Circolo degli Artisti in Turin. His success determined his future: in 1896, Casello began studies at the Paris Conservatory with L. Diémer (piano), X. Leroux (harmony) and G. Fauré (composition). In 1899, he received first prize in the piano class; three years later, his piano career began. Already in 1903, he received an award for Variations sur une chaconne for piano; in 1906, he wrote his first orchestral work with a broader formal scope – Symphony in B minor. In 1906–09 he participated as a harpsichordist in the Société des Instruments Anciens organized by L. Diémer and H. G. Casadesus. In 1910, he conducted three of his works in Paris: Symphony No. 2, Suite in do and Rhapsody Italia. In 1912, he began performing as a conductor in the Concerts Populaires series at the Trocadéro theatre; at the same time, in 1912–15, he taught piano at the Paris Conservatory, initially as A. Cortot’s assistant. He also worked as a music critic, writing reviews for “L’Homme Libre,” a magazine founded by G. Clemenceau; he took part in the continuation of the Société Musicale Indépendante concerts initiated by M. Ravel; at one of them (1914), he presented works by young Italian composers – G. F. Malipiero, I. Pizzetti, and E. Bastianelli – for the first time to the Parisian audience. In 1915, he returned to Italy and settled in Rome, taking up the piano class at the Liceo Musicale di S. Cecilia. In February 1915, he led his first concert as a conductor; he continued to develop a lively activity as a virtuoso pianist and chamber musician. His activity was initially met with clear resistance from the audience, who focused their preferences only on the native opera music of the 19^th century and showed no interest in Italian instrumental music of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, as well as contemporary music. Casella’s works also caused a negative reaction at first; the first performance of Elegia eroica (1917) became a scandal. Casella, wanting to popularise contemporary music in the country, founded the Società Nazionale di Musica Moderna in 1917, soon renamed the Società Italiana di Musica Moderna. This association had its press – “Ars Nova.” In 1923, Casella, together with G. F. Malipiero and G. d’Annunzio, transformed the association into Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche, which served as the Italian section of SIMC for five years. In 1922, Casella resigned from teaching the piano class at the Liceo Musicale, and in 1932 he resumed teaching at the Accademia di S. Cecilia in Rome, now as a master class professor. In 1930, together with A. Poltronieri and A. Bonucci, he founded the Trio Italiano, thus gaining a new, important field of concert activity. He actively participated in organising regular music festivals at the Venice Biennale, and in 1939, he founded Le Settimane Senesi at the Accademia Chigiana and directed them for four years. From 1933 to 1942, he lectured at the summer courses of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, devoting much attention to Italian music of the Baroque period, then still unknown to the general public. In 1932–33 and 1946–47, he was the director of L’Accademia Filarmonica Romana, and from 1931 to 1936 one of the directors of the weekly “L’Italia Letteraria.” In the last years of his life, Casella devoted more and more time to editorial work, but he continued to appear in public despite his illness, which had progressed since 1942. In 1946, he conducted concerts in various cities in Italy; in December 1946, he gave a series of piano recitals devoted to the music of J. S. Bach; he performed for the last time in February 1947 at the Accademia Filarmonica Romana concert. His last work – Missa solemnis pro pace – which, according to Casella, was intended to express the drama of war, was published only after the composer’s death.

Casella’s work underwent a long evolution before the composer managed to create his sound language, which was a synthesis of the workshop elements of the European avant-garde with indigenously Italian elements, derived from folklore and Italian instrumental music of the baroque period. Casella’s early works did not yet foreshadow this synthesis, the composer was then influenced by late Romantic German music, especially G. Mahler and R. Strauss (Symphony in B minor), but already in the rhapsody Italia he also referred to Italian folklore, using Sicilian and Neapolitan folk melodies. In the following period (1914–20), Casella focused on exploration and experimentation, especially in the field of harmonics, which oscillates between polytonality and free atonality. Casella’s “third style,” close to neoclassicism, was outlined in such works as Pezzi infantili, Canzoni trecentesche and Scarlattiana; these works reveal a significant simplification and, at the same time, specificity and clarification of technical means. Casella aims to chamber the orchestra and differentiate the timbres of the instruments, uses a pre-classical concerto technique, prefers concise, lapidary forms, referring to strict baroque and classical formal schemes (suite, concerto grosso, ricercar, sonata, serenade), simplifies harmonics, leaning towards diatonic or even towards modal scales. The sharply and precisely outlined themes in Casella’s works deviate from the tradition of Italian bel canto – they are rather inspired by Italian baroque instrumental music. Rhythm, often complex, becomes an important element; the composer was particularly fond of using expressive, artistic ostinato forms, as well as various stylised dance forms. Casella transferred the experience gained in the field of orchestral and chamber music to the field of opera. His first two operas, La donna serpente and La favola d’Orfeo, referred in terms of themes to the sources of the opera genre: late Renaissance madrigal comedy and early Baroque dramma per musica. Casella’s third opera Il deserto tentato, which is the apotheosis of the victorious war in Abyssinia, is a kind of opera-oratorio. In Casella’s latest works: Concerto for piano, timpani, percussion and strings and Missa solemnis pro pace, some elements of dodecaphonic thinking are visible.

Casella’s extremely active concert and organisational activity played a role in the cultural life of Italy no less important than his compositional work, contributing to the development of new perceptive habits among listeners. Casella introduced to concert stages both Italian avant-garde works and native music of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, which he considered the most valuable musical tradition of his country. He was not only its performer, but also its editor; he brought out of oblivion and published many works by Frescobaldi, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Torelli and D. Scarlatti.

Literatura:

Alfredo Casella, I segreti della Giara, Florence 1941 (autobiography); G. M. Gatti, Musicisti moderni d’Italia e di fuori, Bologna 1925; L. Cortese, Alfredo Casella, Genua 1935; M. Mila, La donna serpente di Alfredo Casella, guida critica, Milan 1942; Alfredo Casella, ed. G. M. Gatti and F. d’Amico, Milan 1958 (with the catalogue of Casella’s work and bibliography); B. Schaeffer, Muzyka XX wieku. Twórcy i problemy, Kraków 1975

M. Labroca, Alfredo Casella, “Anbruch” VII 1925; A. Cantarini, Alfredo Casella, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XXXVIII 1931; H. F. Redlich, Alfredo Casella zum 50. Geburtstag, “Anbruch” XV 1933; “La Rassegna Musicale” XVI 1943 (special ed. for Alfredo Casella’s 60^th birthday anniversary, includes articles by G. de Chirico, M. Mila, G. Gavazzeni, A. Mantell, R. Doria, F. d’Amico); G. M. Gatti, In memory of Alfredo Casella, “The Music Quarterly” XXXIII 1947; F. d’Amico, Sulla Messa di Casella, “La Rassegna Musicale” XXII 1952; G. F. Malipiero, Alfredo Casella and L. Cortese, Il teatro di Alfredo Casella, “Ricordiana” 1956, No. 4; R. Vlad, Riflessi della dodecafonia in Castella, Malipiero e Ghedini, “La Rassegna Musicale” XXVII 1957, No. 1; M. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Alfredo Casella, “La Rassegna Musicale” XXVII 1957, No. 3.