During the troubled last fifteen years the Italian musical activity has shown sufficient vigor to preserve, and in some respects to develop, the artistic and cultural possibilities previously acquired, also managing to reduce at least temporarily sustainable the dangerous downturns of the practice.
Despite the abnormality of the environmental conditions, the dialectical process from one generation to the other of artists took place normal in the historical characterizations: from the definitive conclusion of the late nineteenth-century consecration work (the supreme victory remaining the Puccini’s Turandot, of 1924) and by the full conquest, by the first opponents of the twentieth century, of the positions which their renewal effort had aimed (at positions, all of them, of reopened dialogue with Italian art from Gregorian to Baroque and, together, with that of modern Europe), to the entry into the field of schools by these masters: schools that if from the first groups, which appeared between 1920 and 1930 (see vol. XIX, p. 1017), could already arouse attention and sympathy, second and in those, that is, of the last fifteen years,to show ideal and linguistic values that are important enough to allow us to trust a new efflorescence no less high than that of the early twentieth century.
It therefore seems appropriate by now to note the powerful affirmation, of worldwide resonance, of GF Ghedini, of L. Dallapiccola, of G. Petrassi, and the fervent, often very happy commitment of not a few of their brothers and students, among whom we remember A. Zecchi, S. Fuga, L. Margola, R. Nielsen, B. Bettinelli, G. Gorini, F. Lavagnino, O. Fiume, O. Renzi, B. Maderna, G. Negri, G. Turchi, M. Zafred, V Tosatti, as among the young exponents of different trends we must mention CA Pizzini, R. Rossellini, E. Porrino, J. Napoli, V. Bucchi. Since 1933 many Italian composers have disappeared, including A. Franchetti, P. Mascagni, U. Giordano, E. Wolf-Ferrari, O. Respighi, R. Zandonai, A. Casella, and the young M. Pilati, G. Salviucci, M. Di Veroli, G. Modiglioni.
Musicology. – The musicological work, which was fervent enough until the wartime crisis took away almost every possibility, seems today to be taking on courage again.
In any case, we can ascribe to the assets, in many musicological columns, noteworthy contributions: popular music being interested, among others, G. Fara, FB Pratella, G. Nataletti, A. Bonaccorsi, L. Colacicchi; of art music (especially Italian) the p. P. Ferretti and U. Sesini for the Roman liturgy and Fr. Lorenzo Tardo and O. Tiby for the Byzantine; U. Sesini, F. Liuzzi, A. Bonaccorsi, E. Li Gotti for the troubadour art, for laudistics and for Ars nova; F. Torrefranca, F. Ghisi, F. Mompellio, G. Cesari, G. Benvenuti, G. De Valle de Paz, Msgr. R. Casimiri, G. Pannain, E. Dagnino, F. Vatielli, F. Fano for the Renaissance; F. Fano, G. Cesari, G. Pannain, B. Lupo, D. De Paoli, GF Malipiero, O. Tiby, G. Roncaglia for the seventeenth century from the Florentines and from Monteverdi to the first instrumentalists; F. Torrefranca, GF Malipiero, SA Luciani, C. Sartori, L. valabrega, G. Barblan, R. Giazotto, A. Della Corte, V. Fedeli, M. Mila, for the further Baroque and for the second eighteenth century; while the nineteenth-century and modern art have dealt with, in addition to almost all these authors, many others, including GM Gatti, E. Desideri, A. Capri, M. Rinaldi, F. Ballo, GA Gavazzeni, GA Mantelli, G. Graziosi, F. D’Amico, L. Rognoni.
Works of general historiography have given G. Pannain and A. Della Corte (in collaboration), F. Abbiati, M. Mila and others.
Furthermore, the debate of an aesthetic nature was intense, in which G. Pannain, GM Gatti, E. Borrelli, L. Ronga, A. Parente, M. Mila, G. Graziosi, F. D’Amico, and, in various interventions, also many other scholars and artists: a debate that, initially limited, mostly, to single problems inherent in the musicological application of idealistic aesthetics (almost always of the Crucian system), seems today invest the very principles of this aesthetic.
