Antonio Virgilio Savona (21 December 1919 – 27 August 2009) was an Italian composer, arranger, and singer in the Italian vocal group, the

Quartetto Cetra ; ) was an Italian jazz vocal quartet established during the early 1940s and active until 1988. Career The band was based on the Mills Brothers and started performing under the name Quartetto Egie from the initials of the singers' first names: En ...

.Mario Luzzatto Fegiz,

Corriere della Sera (; ) is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan with an average circulation of 246,278 copies in May 2023. First published on 5 March 1876, is one of Italy's oldest newspapers and is Italy's most read newspaper. Its masthead has remain ...

(29 August 2009)
Addio a Virgilio Savona, ideologo del Quartetto Cetra.
Retrieved 13 December 2012.

Biography

Savona was born in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

, Italy. His artistic career started very early. In 1926, aged 6, he began studying music. Two years later, he joined a choir and at the age of 10, he debuted in a radio broadcast playing a piece on a piano during a children's program. After high-school, Savona enrolled at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome to study piano. In 1941, he replaced Iacopo Jacomelli in a vocal quartet called Quartetto Egie. The group changed name to Quartetto Ritmo at first, then to

one year later. On 19 August 1944 Virgilio Savona married the singer Lucia Mannucci, who later joined

to replace Enrico De Angelis, who left the group in 1947. Besides singing, Savona composed and arranged for the group. He wrote the music while

Tata Giacobetti Giovanni "Tata" Giacobetti (24 June 1922 – 2 December 1988) was an Italian singer and jazz musician. He is mostly known for being a member of the vocal quartet Quartetto Cetra. Biography Giacobetti was a self-taught musician. He learned to pla ...

, another member of the quartet, wrote the lyrics. They collaborated for four decades and produced hundreds of songs which made up Quartetto Cetra's vast repertoire. Savona composed music and wrote scripts for radio and TV programs, stage shows and films. During the 1970s, he was active as pianist, orchestra conductor, arranger and producer. He extensively researched on folk songs. In 1971, he wrote ''Angela'', a song for

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...

, Black American communist leader, innocent in prison at this time. In 70s, he published also other controversial songs, as ''Il testamento del parroco Meslier'' ("The Testament of Parson Meslier"), a violent attack on power and religion, based on the ''Testament'' of the priest and illuminist atheist philosopher

Jean Meslier Jean Meslier (; also Mellier; 15 June 1664 – 17 June 1729) was a French Catholic priest (abbé) who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting atheism and materialism. Described by the author as ...

. In 1991, he wrote a popup book about Quartetto Cetra, published by Sperling & Kupfer in the ''Supersound'' collection. In 2009, he died in Milan from complications of

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a neurodegenerative disease primarily of the central nervous system, affecting both motor system, motor and non-motor systems. Symptoms typically develop gradually and non-motor issues become ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Savona 1919 births 2009 deaths Musicians from Palermo Neurological disease deaths in Lombardy Deaths from Parkinson's disease in Italy Italian male songwriters Italian songwriters 20th-century Italian male singers Italian male jazz musicians Quartetto Ritmo members Quartetto Cetra members Italian jazz pianists Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia alumni