Aldo Clementi (25 May 1925 – 3 March 2011) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

classical composer.

Life

Aldo Clementi was born in

Catania Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, wh ...

, Italy. He studied the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, graduating in 1946 at the

Conservatorio Santa Cecilia The Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia is a state conservatory in Rome. History The institution has its roots dated back to the Congregazione de' musici di Roma named after Saint Cecilia in 1565 (now Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia). Si ...

in Rome. His studies in composition began in 1941, and his teachers included and Goffredo Petrassi. After receiving his diploma in 1954 again at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, he attended the Darmstadt summer courses from 1955 to 1962. Important influences during this period included meeting

Bruno Maderna Bruno Maderna (born Bruno Grossato, 21 April 1920 – 13 November 1973) was an Italian composer, conductor and academic teacher. Life Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but later decided to take the name of his mother, Caterina Carolina M ...

in 1956, and working at the electronic music studio of the Italian radio broadcaster RAI in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. ''Poesia de Rilke'' (1946) was the first work of his to be performed (

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, 1947). Of more significance was the premiere of ''Cantata'' (1954), which was broadcast by North German Radio (Hamburg) in 1956. In 1959 he won second prize in the ISCM competition with ''Episodi'' (1958), and in 1963 he took first prize in the same competition, with ''Sette scene da "Collage"'' (1961). He taught music theory at the University of Bologna from 1971 to 1992. Clementi died on 3 March 2011 in Rome.

Style

In 1983 David Fanning described Clementi's style of decelerating canons as "sharing in the widespread post-serial depression of the 1970s", while in 1988 Paul Griffiths referred to the "Alexandrian simplicity of his solution to the current confusion in music. Clementi himself described his works as "an extremely dense counterpoint, relegating the parts to the shameful role of inaudible, cadaverous micro-organisms". His music has been featured at ''Ultima'', the Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (2009), performed and recorded by ensembles including Trio Accanto, the Quatuor Bozzini, the Ives Ensemble and the Contemporary Music Ensemble of Wales and broadcast by

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

Selected works

*''Episodi'' (1958) for

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

*''Ideogrammi n. 1'' (1959) for 16 instruments *''Triplum'' (1960) for

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

and

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

*''Collage'' (1961) – stage work *''Informel 2'' (1962) for 15 performers *''Collage 2'' (1962) for electronics *''Informel 3'' (1961–63) for orchestra *''Intavolatura'' (1963) for

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

*''Variante A'' (1964) for mixed

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song), the part of a song that is repeated several times, usually after each verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in whic ...

and orchestra *Concerto (1970) for piano and 7 instruments *Concerto (1975) for piano, 24 instruments and

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a musical keyboard, keyboard and consists of at least 23 bells. The bells are Bellfounding, cast in Bell metal, bronze, hung in fixed suspension, and Musical tuning, tu ...

s *''Clessidra'' (1976) for chamber orchestra *''L'orologio di Arcevla'' (1979) for 13 performers *''Variazioni'' (1979) for viola solo *''Capriccio'' (1979–1980) for viola and 24 instruments *''Dodici variazioni'' (1980) for solo

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

*''Fantasia su roBErto FABbriCiAni'' (1980–81) for flute and tape *''Es'' (1981) – stage work *''Parafrasi'' (1981) 18 voice

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

realized with processor *''Adagio'' (1983) for quintet with

prepared piano A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for ''Works for pr ...

*''Ouverture'' (1984) for 12 flutes *Concerto (1986) for piano and 14 instruments *''Fantasia'' (1987) for 4 guitars *''Tribute'' (1988) for

string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...

*''Berceuse'' (1989) for orchestra *''Romanza'' (1991) for piano and orchestra *''The Plaint'' (1992) for female voice and 13 instruments *''Wiegenlied'' (1994) for soprano and 5 instruments *''Tre Ricercari'' (2000) for saxophone, piano and celesta/vibraphone/tubular bells *''Sonate Y.'' (2002) for solo

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

References

*Clementi, Aldo, Maria Rosa De Luca, Salvatore Enrico Failla, and Graziella Seminara. 2005. ''Per Aldo Clementi: nell'occasione dei suoi ottant'anni, 25 maggio 2005''. Catania: Università degli studi di Catania. *Cresti, Renzo. 1990. ''Aldo Clementi: studio monografico e intervista''. Milan: Edizioni Suvini Zerboni. *Lux, Simonetta, and Daniela Tortora. 2005. ''Collage 1961: un'azione dell'arte di Achille Perilli e Aldo Clementi''. Luxflux proto type arte contemporanea, Documenti 1. Rome: Gangemi. *Mattietti, Gianluigi. 2001. ''Geometrie di musica: il periodo diatonico di Aldo Clementi''. Lucca: Libreria musicale italiana. *Osmond-Smith, David. 1981. "Aux creux néant musicien: Recent Work by Aldo Clementi". ''Contact'', no. 23:5–9. *Osmond-Smith, David. 2001. "Clementi, Aldo". ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'', second edition, edited by

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was a British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was published as the first edition ...

and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. *Seminara, Graziella, and Maria Rosa De Luca (eds.). 2008. ''Canoni, figure, carillons: itinerari della musica di Aldo Clementi: atti dell'incontro di studi, Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, Catania, 30–31 maggio 2005''. Milan: Suvini Zerboni. . *Zaccagnini, Michele. 2016. "''Deus ex Machina'': Uncovering Aldo Clementi's System". ''

Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Musi ...

'' 54, no. 1 (Winter): 137–178. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clementi, Aldo 1925 births 2011 deaths Musicians from Catania Conservatorio Santa Cecilia alumni 20th-century Italian classical composers 20th-century male composers 21st-century Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers Composers from Bologna Pupils of Goffredo Petrassi Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen Twelve-tone and serial composers 20th-century Italian male musicians 21st-century Italian male musicians

Life

Style

Selected works

References

Further reading