Carlo Maria Giulini (; 9 May 1914 – 14 June 2005) was an Italian conductor.

From the age of five, when he began to play the violin, Giulini's musical education was expanded when he began to study at Italy's foremost conservatory, the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome at the age of 16. Initially, he studied the viola and conducting; then, following an audition, he won a place in the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Although he won a conducting competition two years later, he was unable to take advantage of the prize, which was the opportunity to conduct, because of being forced to join the army during World War II despite being a pacifist. As the war was ending, he hid until the liberation to avoid continuing to fight alongside the Germans. While in hiding, he married his girlfriend, Marcella, and they remained together until her death in 1995. Together, they had three children.

After the 1944 liberation, he was invited to lead what was then known as the Augusteo Orchestra (now

the Santa Cecilia Orchestra) Therefore, most of the neighbors spoke a dialect of German, and the local music he heard tended to be Austrian/Tyrolean. He recalled being transfixed by the town band. In 1928, the distinguished Italian violinist/composer Remy Prìncipe (1889–1977) gave a recital in Bolzano, and auditioned Giulini; he invited Giulini to study with him at Italy's foremost conservatory, the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome. Giulini undertook his studies there two years later, at the age of 16. He studied viola with Principe, composition with Alessandro Bustini (1876–1970), and conducting with Bernardino Molinari.

At the age of 18, in order to supplement his family's income (which had been depleted by the Great Depression), he auditioned for the viola section of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, at the time Italy's foremost orchestra. He recalled crying for joy when informed that he had won the audition and would be the orchestra's last-desk violist.

Among the guest conductors he played under were Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Richard Strauss, Victor de Sabata, Fritz Reiner, Pierre Monteux, Igor Stravinsky, and Otto Klemperer. His first public performance was the First Symphony of Brahms under Walter. Giulini told interviewers that he loved the gentle manner of Walter, who he said had a gift for making every musician feel important.

Career

thumb|De Girolami and Giulini in the Netherlands in 1965

In 1940, Giulini won a conducting competition, whose prize was the chance to conduct the St. Cecilia orchestra, but before the concert, Giulini was drafted into the Italian army, made a second lieutenant, and sent to the front in Croatia. However, because of his commitment to pacifism and intense opposition to fascism and to Benito Mussolini, he did not fire his gun at human targets.

In 1942, on a 30-day break in Rome, he married Marcella de Girolami (1921–1995), his girlfriend since 1938; they remained together until her death 53 years later. In September 1943, the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces was signed, but the Nazi occupation refused to abandon Rome, and Giulini's Italian commander ordered his troops to fight with the Nazis. Giulini chose instead to go into hiding, living for nine months in a tunnel underneath a home owned by his wife's uncle, along with two friends and a Jewish family which was avoiding Nazi arrest and deportation. Posters around Rome with his face and name instructed that he be shot on sight.

After the Allies liberated Rome on 4 June 1944, Giulini—who was among the few conductors not tainted by associations with Fascism—was chosen to lead the Accademia's first post-Fascist concert, held on 16 July 1944. On the program was the Brahms Symphony No. 4, which he had studied while in hiding. It became the work he conducted most frequently over the course of his career, with a total of 180 performances.

Giulini began working with the Chamber Orchestra of Rome in 1944, and was made its music director in 1946. Also in 1944 he became assistant conductor of the RAI (Italian Radio) Orchestra in Rome, becoming its principal conductor in 1946. Four years later he was involved in the founding of the Milan Radio Orchestra, working with them from 1946 to 1954, as well as with the RAI's Rome orchestra.

Giulini and conducting opera

Although Giulini conducted La traviata for Italian radio in 1948,

In his five years in the position, Giulini conducted 13 productions, which included:

Notable recordings

Giulini's most notable opera recordings include the 1959 Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus versions of Mozart's operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni for EMI, as well as his live 1955 recording of Verdi's La traviata with Maria Callas. He also made recordings of Verdi's Requiem and the Four Sacred Pieces, which were highly praised.

Admired orchestral records include Debussy's La mer and Nocturnes, Dvořák's 9th Symphony and Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Brahms's 4th Symphony and Mahler's 1st and 9th symphonies with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven's 3rd and 5th Symphonies, and Schumann's 3rd Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Brahms's four Symphonies and German requiem, and Anton Bruckner's 7th, 8th and 9th symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic, Dvořák's 7th and 9th Symphonies with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and Schubert's 8th and 9th Symphonies with the Bavarian Radio Symphony. Most of these discs were recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon label. His live recording of Britten's War Requiem made in the Royal Albert Hall in 1969 which is available as a BBC Legends recording was a Gramophone Award winner.

Awards and recognitions

  • Gramophone Award
  • 1981 Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major; Itzhak Perlman / Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI Classics)
  • Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance
  • 1981 Mozart: Requiem; Norbert Balatsch (choirmaster) / Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus
  • Grammy Award for Best Classical Album
  • 1979 Brahms: Concerto For Violin in D; Itzhak Perlman / Chicago Symphony Orchestra
  • Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical
  • 1965 Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra
  • Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance
  • 1989 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23; Vladimir Horowitz / La Scala Orchestra
  • Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance
  • 1972 Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D; Chicago Symphony Orchestra
  • 1978 Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D; Chicago Symphony Orchestra
  • Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (1972)

See also

  • Don Giovanni (Giulini recording)
  • Recordings of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Carlo Maria Giulini

Discography integral www.giulini.fr

References

;Notes

;Sources

;Further reading

  • Allen T.; A. Blyth (2005), "Carlo Maria Giulini, 1914–2005", in Opera (London), Vol. 56 No. 8, pp. 911–914
  • Benzing, Gian Mario (2006), Notes from "Concert in memory of Carlo Maria Giulini" by Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, directed by Myung-whun Chung. Milano, Teatro alla Scala, 24 April 2006
  • Bras, Jean-Yves (2006), Carlo Maria Giulini. Bleu Nuit Editeur
  • Foletto, Angelo (1997), Carlo Maria Giulini. Edizioni San Paolo
  • Hunt, John (2002), Carlo Maria Giulini: Discography and Concert Register. London
  • Hunt John (2009), 3 Italian Conductors and 7 Viennese Sopranos, 10 Discographies Toscanini, Cantelli, Giulini, Schwarzkopf, Seefried, Gruemmer, Jurinac, Gueden, Casa, Streich. London: Walden Books
  • Zignani, Alessandro (2009), Carlo Maria Giulini. Zecchini Editore
  • Gramophone Award Listings, 1977–2002
  • Complete Discography
  • Times article about Giulini