Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic notation, which has often created special problems of interpretation. He was known as a composer for the stage. His first opera was La Passion selon Sade, premiered in Palermo in 1965. Later operas and ballets were premiered at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Teatro Lirico di Milano, Teatro Regio di Torino and Piccola Scala di Milano, among others. He was artistic director of La Fenice in Venice, the Puccini Festival and the music section of the Venice Biennale. He taught internationally, for a decade at the Fiesole School of Music. He is regarded as a leading composer of Italy's avantgarde, and a Renaissance man with many talents who combined the arts expressively.

Bussotti died at a nursing home in Milan after a long illness on 19 September 2021, twelve days before his 90th birthday. Festivities planned in Florence for the event are held in his memory, titled 90 Bussotti, from 20 to 25 September, including performances by , Florence Queer Festival, Fondazione Culturale Stensen, Maschietto Editore, and Tempo Reale, collaborating with Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Bussotti Opera Ballet and the Museo Marino Marini. in the course of which the Ensemble E-MEX played two commemorative concerts. This included the first complete performance of Bussotti's "Piêces de Chair II" (1960), sung, among others, by soprano Monica Benvenuti, who had long been closely associated with the composer.

Awards

Bussotti was awarded the ISCM Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1961, 1963 and 1965, then in 1967 the All'Amelia Prize at the Venice Biennale, in 1974 the Toscani d'Oggi Prize, and in 1979 the Psacaropulo Prize.

  • L'ispirazione, melodramma in three acts, 1988
  • Raragramma, for orchestra and violin and flute obbligato. (1980) I. Raragramma; II. L'enfant prodige; III. Paganini; IV. Calando symphony. Score: Ricordi. World premiere: 20 October 1979 (Fabbriciani, SWF Sinfonieorchester, Bour) second part of the cycle "Il catalogo e questo"; dedicated to Romano, Rocco and Luigi Pestalozza and Francesco Degrada

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  • 5 Piano Pieces for David Tudor (1959)
  • Phrase à Trois (1960)
  • Pour Clavier (1961)
  • Torso (1963)
  • Rara Requiem (1969)
  • Poesia di De Pisis (1975)
  • Fogli d'Album (1984)
  • Il Catalogo È Questo (1979–88)
  • Mozartiane I (2006)
  • Mozartiane II (2007)
  • Rara Film (1964, revised 2008)

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Novels and poems

Bussotti's writings included:<br />The path of more than fifty years of musical culture in Florence, since the end of the Second World War, is documented in these two audio CDs. This audio recording contains the meeting of composers and pianists who are the protagonists of the Music of Art in Florence, a significant phenomenon in the history of the second half of the twentieth century.

Notes and references

Notes

References

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Further reading

  • Attinello, Paul. Signifying Chaos: A Semiotic Analysis of Sylvano Bussotti's "Siciliano", in: repercussions 1 (1992), pp.&nbsp;84–110.
  • Bortolotto, Mario. Fase seconda. Studi sulla Nuova Musica, Einaudi, Turin 1969. [especially the chapter "Le cinque tentazioni di Bussotti", pp.&nbsp;201–226.]
  • Bortolotto, Mario (ed.). "Sognato dalla storia": materiali per un "Lorenzaccio", in: Lo Spettatore musicale, Sonderheft, Bologna 1972 [with contributions from Mario Bortolotto, Giorgio Manganelli, and Salvatore Sciarrino].
  • Bucci, Moreno (ed.). L'opera di Sylvano Bussotti. Musica, segno, immagine, progetto. Il teatro, le scene, i costumi, gli attrezzi ed i capricci dagli anni Quaranta al BUSSOTTIOPERABALLET, Electa editrice, Milano 1988.
  • Degrada, Francesco (ed.). Bussottioperaballet: Sylvano Bussotti e il suo teatro: Oggetto amato ─ Nottetempo, Ricordi, Milan, 1976; [Bussotti: Cinque frammenti autobiografici, p.&nbsp;13, the libretto of "Nottetempo", interviews and essays].
  • Esposito, Luigi. "Un male incontenibile – Sylvano Bussotti artista senza confini", Bietti, Milano, 2013.
  • La Face, Giuseppina. Teatro, eros e segno nell'opera di Sylvano Bussotti, in: Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 9 (1974), pp.&nbsp;250–268.
  • Lucioli, Alessandra. Sylvano Bussotti, Targa Italiana Editrice, Milan, 1988.
  • Maehder, Jürgen, and Sylvano Bussotti. Turandot, Pisa (Giardini) 1983.
  • Maehder, Jürgen. BUSSOTTIOPERABALLET ─ Sviluppi della drammaturgia musicale bussottiana, in: Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana 18 (1984), pp.&nbsp;441–468.
  • Maehder, Jürgen. BUSSOTTIOPERABALLET ─ Zur Entwicklung der musikalischen Dramaturgie im Werk Sylvano Bussottis, in: Otto Kolleritsch (ed.), Oper heute. Formen der Wirklichkeit im zeitgenössischen Musiktheater, Studien zur Wertungsforschung vol. 16, Universal Edition, Vienna and Graz, 1985, pp.&nbsp;188–216.
  • Maehder, Jürgen. "Odo un Sylvano" ─ Zur Rolle des Komponisten, Regisseurs, Bühnen-und Kostümbildners Sylvano Bussotti im zeitgenössischen Musiktheater, Programmheft der Frankfurter Feste, Alte Oper, Frankfurt 1991, pp.&nbsp;16–63.
  • Maehder, Jürgen. ""Bussotti, Sylvano". The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, 4 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1992.
  • Maehder, Jürgen. Zitat, Collage, Palimpsest ─ Zur Textbasis des Musiktheaters bei Luciano Berio und Sylvano Bussotti, in Hermann Danuser and Matthias Kassel (eds.), Musiktheater heute. Internationales Symposion der Paul Sacher Stiftung Basel 2001, Schott, Mainz 2003, .
  • Jürgen Maehder, Sylvano Bussotti's Music Theatre as Image-based »Gesamtkunstwerk« ─ Narrativity and Musico-Dramatic Coherence from »La Passion selon Sade« to »L'Ispirazione«, in: Daniela Tortora (ed.), The Theatres of Sylvano Bussotti, Turnhout (Brepols) 2020, pp. 3-68.
  • Jürgen Maehder. »Una Filosofia del Melodramma ragionata e vissuta in primissima persona« ─ Estetica teatrale e prassi registica in Sylvano Bussotti, in: Daniela Tortora (ed.), The Theatres of Sylvano Bussotti, Turnhout (Brepols) 2020, pp. 495-521.
  • Giovanna Morelli, Dopo il melodramma. Il teatro lirico di Sylvano Bussotti, ETS, Pisa, 2009.
  • Morini, Luciano. Moda e musica nei costumi di Sylvano Bussotti, Idealibri, Milan 1984; German edition: Aldo Premoli/Luciano Morini: Träume in Samt und Seide. Mystik und Realität in den Opernkostümen des Sylvano Bussotti, Edition Wissenschaft & Literatur, Marketing-und-Wirtschaft Verlagsgesellschaft Flade, Munich 1985, .
  • Osmond-Smith, David. "Bussotti, Sylvano". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.
  • Pinzauti, Leonardo. A colloquio con Sylvano Bussotti, in: Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana 4/1970, pp.&nbsp;898–909.
  • Stoïanova, Ivanka. Geste ─ texte ─ musique, Éditions 10/18, Paris 1978.
  • Stoïanova, Ivanka. Mythos und Gedächtnis. Bemerkungen über das italienische Musiktheater: Luciano Berio ─ "Outis" und Sylvano Bussotti ─ "Tieste", in: Otto Kolleritsch (ed.), Das Musiktheater ─ Exempel der Kunst, Studien zur Wertungsforschung vol. 38, Universal Edition, Vienna and Graz, 2001, pp.&nbsp;161–191.
  • Stoïanova, Ivanka. Entre détermination et aventure. Essais sur la musique de la deuxième moitié du XXeme siècle, L'Harmattan, Paris, 2004.
  • Stoïanova, Ivanka. Sylvano Bussotti: B. O. B.—Bussottioperaballet/Stratégies dissipatives dans "Questo fauno" et "Tieste". In Musiques vocales en Italie depuis 1945, edited by Pierre Michel and Gianmario Borio, pp.&nbsp;29–60. Collection Recherche, edited by Sophie Stevance. Notre Dame de Bliquetuit: Millénaire III Éditions, 2005. .
  • Daniela Tortora (ed.), The Theatres of Sylvano Bussotti, Turnhout (Brepols) 2020.