Flavio Testi (4 January 1923 in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

– 14 January 2014 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 ...

) was an Italian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is Western art music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st-century classical music, 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 Modernism (music), post-tonal music after the death of ...

and

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

Biography

He studied with Giulio Cesare Gedda and Luigi Perrachio at the

Turin Conservatory The Conservatorio Statale di Musica Giuseppe Verdi, also known as the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi or Conservatorio Torino and more commonly known in English as the Turin Conservatory, is a music conservatory in Turin, Italy. It should not be confu ...

, and took an arts degree at Milan University (1951). He then worked for

Suvini Zerboni Suvini Zerboni (ESZ) Italian music publishing house founded in 1907 in Milan, taking its name from the theater society of the same name. The ESZ catalogue included, besides operetta favourites, the best of Italian contemporary music, such compose ...

and Ricordi while also composing, pursuing his interest in music history and working on various radio projects for the RAI. From 1972 he devoted himself to educational activities, teaching music history at the Padua Conservatory and then taking up teaching posts at the

Milan Conservatory The Milan Conservatory, also known as the Conservatorio di Milano and the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, is a Music school, college of music in Milan, Italy. History The conservatory was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital ...

and

Florence Conservatory The Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini, better known in English as the Florence Conservatory is a music conservatory in Florence, Italy. It is the only music conservatory in Tuscany with the status of a national conservatory, and is operated by the go ...

Musical style and influence

As a composer, Testi's music has been strongly influenced by the works of

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

along with his own dramatic sensibility. This is particularly evident in his earlier orchestral works such as ''Concerto'' (1954) and ''Divertimento'' (1956). His ''La crocifissione'' premièred at

La Scala La Scala (, , ; officially , ) is a historic opera house in Milan, Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as (, which previously was Santa Maria della Scala, Milan, a church). The premiere performa ...

in 1954 to great acclaim. The expressiveness of work was particularly admired and the composer followed similar style in his ''Stabat mater'' (1957) and ''New York oficina y denuncia'' (1964), the latter of which denounced the dehumanizing environment of the modern metropolis. The work coincided with the Testi's conversion to the

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

, and was followed by other compositions highlighting social and political concerns, including the Neruda setting ''Canto a las madres de los milicianos muertos'' (1967) and ''Cori di Santiago'' (1975). Testi's operas evolve towards junctures of violent scenic-musical realism. ''L’albergo dei poveri'' (1966) displays a clearly characteristic attitude of rough dramatic purpose, confirmed in ''Il sosia'' (1981) and ''Riccardo III'' (

, 1987), works which probe intensely into the psychology of their characters. In general Testi's style, rather than adhering to the radicalisms of the post-Webern avant garde, re-elaborates and reflects, not without eclecticism, certain crucial 20th-century achievements, from Stravinsky and Bartók to early

Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music, ...

. His last opera, ''Mariana Pineda'', premiered at the

Theater Erfurt The Theater Erfurt is a German municipal theatre located in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia. The main stage is in a building in the Brühlervorstadt, completed in 2003. The theatre offers musical theatre and concerts, played by the Philharmonisc ...

, Germany, on September 8, 2007.

Works

*''Il furore d'Oreste'' (Bergamo, Teatro Donizetti, 1956); *''La Celestina'' (Florence, Teatro della Pergola, 1963); *''L'Albergo dei Poveri'' (Milan, Piccola Scala, 1966); *''Il Sosia'' (Milan, Piccola Scala, 1981); *''Riccardo III'' (Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 1987); *''La brocca rotta'' (Bologna, Teatro Comunale, 1997); *''Saül'' (Paris, Radio France, in forma di concerto, 2003; Macerata, Teatro Lauro Rossi, in forma scenica, 2007); *''Mariana Pineda'' (Theater Erfurt, Germany, 2007).

Awards

*2010: Gonfalone d'Argentohttp://met.provincia.fi.it/news.aspx?id=67415 Source: MET - News dalle Pubbliche Amministrazioni della Toscana centrale, 8 February 2010, "Gonfalone d'Argento a Flavio Testi"

Discography

* Saul (opera) * La Celestina (opera)

References

Sources

*Raffaele Pozzi. The ''

New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes. The dictionary was first published in 1992 by Macmillan Reference, L ...

'', edited by Stanley Sadie (1992). and {{DEFAULTSORT:Testi, Flavio 1923 births 2014 deaths Italian classical composers Italian opera composers Italian male opera composers Turin Conservatory alumni University of Milan alumni Academic staff of Milan Conservatory Composers from Florence 20th-century Italian musicians 20th-century Italian male musicians