Showing posts with label Flute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flute. Show all posts

5 January 2019

Severino Gazzelloni - flautist

Lead player with RAI orchestra considered a great of Italian music


Severino Gazzelloni was regarded as one of Italy's finest flautist
Severino Gazzelloni was regarded as one of
Italy's finest flautist
The flautist Severino Gazzelloni, who for 30 years was the principal player of his instrument in the prestigious RAI National Symphony Orchestra but who had a repertoire that extended well beyond orchestral classical music, was born on this day in 1919 in Roccasecca, a town perched on a hillside in southern Lazio, about 130km (81 miles) south of Rome.

He was known for his versatility. In addition to his proficiency in classical flute pieces, Gazzelloni also excelled in jazz and 20th century avant-garde music. As such, many musicians and aficionados regard him as one of the finest flute players of all time.

Gazzelloni also taught others to master the flute. His notable pupils included the American jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy and the Dutch classical flautist Abbie de Quant.

The son of a tailor in Roccasecca, Gazzelloni grew up in modest circumstances yet had music around him from a young age as his father played in a local band.  He taught himself music and became fascinated with the flute as an instrument, acquiring the technique to play it simply by practising for endless hours on his own.

Severino Gazzelloni's golden flute was made for him by a craftsman in Germany
Severino Gazzelloni's golden flute was made for him
by a craftsman in Germany
By the age of seven, his father considered him good enough to sit alongside him in the band, whose conductor and musical director, Giambattista Creati, recognised him as a musician of natural talent and great potential.

With Creati’s encouragement, Gazzelloni developed as a performer over the next few years and in 1934, at the age of 15, obtained a place at Italy’s premier conservatory, the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he graduated in 1942 under the guidance of the accomplished flautist Arrigo Tassinari.

During the war years he stayed in Rome, finding work in the orchestra at a variety theatre, where he met Alberto Semprini, who would go on to become director of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.

When Gazzelloni played with that orchestra for the first time in 1944, it was called the Radio Roma Orchestra, led by Fernando Previtali. His debut appearance began an association that would last until the mid 1970s.

Gazzelloni was as comfortable playing jazz as he was with classical music
Gazzelloni was as comfortable playing jazz as he
was with classical music
He began to give solo recitals in 1945, launching his solo career with a tour of Belgium. His debut as a soloist in an Italian venue did not come until 1947, when Italy was beginning to get back on its feet after the devastation of the Second World War, and Gazzelloni gave a performance at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome.

His interest in avant-garde music developed after he had met the Venetian-born composer Bruno Maderna, through whom he was introduced to the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik - a summer school for ‘new music’ - that was held each year in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt.

Gazzelloni went to Darmstadt for the first time in 1952 and taught there continuously from 1956 to 1966.

In those years he developed friendships and professional relationships with some of the leading lights of the 20th century avant-garde movement, including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, Franco Donatoni, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Luciano Berio and Sylvano Bussotti.

The composer Igor Stravinsky composed music for Gazzelloni
The composer Igor Stravinsky composed
music for Gazzelloni
Berio, the experimental composer who was a pioneer of electronic music, Boulez, Maderna and Igor Stravinsky - the Russian-born pianist considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century - all wrote pieces specifically for Gazzelloni, who was nicknamed “the Golden Flute” - in part in recognition of his virtuosity but also because he did actually own a gold-plated flute, made for him by a German craftsman in 1956.

Gazzelloni is said to have enjoyed the informality of the jazz scene and one of his most successful tours came in 1976, when he was accompanied by the eminent classical pianist Bruno Canino and a jazz combo that comprised some of Italy’s top names, including the jazz piano player Enrico Intra, the saxophonist Giancarlo Barigozzi, bass guitarist Pino Presti, drummer Tullio De Piscopo and lead guitarist Sergio Farina.

At his peak as a soloist, Gazzelloni played as many as 250 concerts a year, as well as teaching at the Academy of Santa Cecilia and at the Chigiana Academy in Siena.

He died in Cassino, not far from Roccasecca, in 1992 in a clinic where he had been undergoing treatment for a brain tumour.

Two years after his death, the municipality of Roccasecca launched a musical festival in his honour and the event, the International Festival Severino Gazzelloni, is today an annual month-long event staged in August and September, supported by the Licinio Refice Conservatory of Frosinone and the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, with sponsorship from businesses in the area.

The remains of the castle at Roccasecca
The remains of the castle at Roccasecca
Travel tip:

The town of Roccasecca occupies a strategic position at the entrance to two narrow gorges that provide access to the Valle di Comino below the slopes of Monte Asprano. It has a castle built in the 10th century at the behest of the Abbot of Montecassino. The abbot later put the castle in the control of the D’Aquino family and it was there that Tommaso D’Aquino, the Dominican friar who was canonized as Saint Thomas Aquinas fifty years after his death, was supposedly born in 1225. The castle fell into disrepair in the 17th century.


The entrance to the Conservatory of the Academy of Santa Cecilia
The entrance to the Conservatory
of the Academy of Santa Cecilia
Travel tip:

The National Academy of Santa Cecilia is one of the oldest musical academies in the world. It was founded in Rome by Pope Sixtus V in 1585 at the Church of Santa Maria ad Martires, better known as the Pantheon. Over the centuries, many famous composers and musicians have been members of the Academy, which lists opera singers Beniamino Gigli and Cecilia Bartoli among its alumni. Since 2005 the Academy’s headquarters have been at the Parco della Musica in Rome, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, but the historic conservatory in Via dei Greci remains, offering preparatory courses, and also houses the Italian Institute for Music History.



More reading:

How avant-garde composer Luigi Nono saw music as a form of political expression

Why Pino Presti is an important figure in Italian contemporary music

The brilliance of classical flute player Leonardo De Lorenzo

Also on this day:

1905: The birth of Michele Navarra - practising doctor and Mafia boss

1932: The birth of academic and novelist Umberto Eco

1948: The birth of anti-Mafia activist Giuseppe Impastato


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29 August 2017

Leonardo De Lorenzo – flautist

Flair for the flute led to international career


Leonardo De Lorenzo played with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonardo De Lorenzo played with the
New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonardo De Lorenzo, a brilliant flute player who passed on his knowledge of the instrument to others through his books, was born on this day in 1875 in Viggiano in the province of Potenza.

De Lorenzo started playing the flute at the age of eight and then moved to Naples to attend the music conservatory of San Pietro a Majella.

He became an itinerant flautist until he was 16, when he moved to America, where he worked in a hotel. He returned to Italy in 1896 to do his military service in Alessandria and became a member of a military band directed by Giovanni Moranzoni, whose son was to become a famous conductor of the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

De Lorenzo then began a career as a flautist and toured Italy, Germany, England and South Africa, joining an orchestra in Cape Town for a while. Eventually he returned to Naples to continue his studies.

When he travelled to America again, he became first flautist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Gustav Mahler. He was warned never to answer back to Mahler, who had a reputation for being unpleasant. Later, in his writing, he recalled that the only time he dared speak to Mahler was after his name had been misspelled in the programme as ‘de Lorenzo’ with a lower case ‘d’. He politely requested the correction saying: ‘De Lorenzo, please, Maestro.’

Gustav Mahler, who was director of the New York Philharmonic when De Lorenzo was first flautist
Gustav Mahler, who was director of the New York
Philharmonic when De Lorenzo was first flautist
He also went on to play for the New York Symphony Orchestra and for orchestras in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Rochester.

While playing in Minneapolis, he met Maud Peterson, a pianist who frequently accompanied him, and they were later married.

De Lorenzo became professor for flute at the Eastman School of Music and on his retirement concentrated on composing music for the flute and writing about the instrument.

His compositions, Saltarella and Pizzica-pizzica are a homage to the traditional music of his native town.

In 1951 he published the book, My Complete Story of the Flute, after carrying out extensive research.

On August 29 1955 the Los Angeles Flute Club gave a concert in which they performed his compositions to celebrate his 80th birthday.

De Lorenzo died at his home in Santa Barbara in 1962 at the age of 86.

The International Flute Competition, Leonardo De Lorenzo, is held every two years in his birthplace, Viggiano.

Musicians of Viggiano, as imagined in a book in 1853
Musicians of Viggiano, as imagined in a book in 1853
Travel Tip:

Viggiano, where De Lorenzo was born, is a town in the province of Potenza in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. It is well known for its migrant street musicians and for harp making. Many street musicians from Viggiano have gone on to play in orchestras in Europe, America and Australia. Viggiano is also home to Europe’s biggest oil field.

The Church of San Pietro a Majella in Naples
The Church of San Pietro a Majella in Naples
Travel tip:

San Pietro a Majella, the Naples Music Conservatory, occupies the former monastery adjoining the church of San Pietro a Majella at the western end of Via Tribunali in Naples. Formerly housed in the monastery of San Sebastiano, the Music Conservatory moved to its present location in 1826.