Vittorio Giannini

Vittorio Giannini (October 19, 1903 – November 28, 1966) was an American neoromantic composer of operas, songs, symphonies, and band works.
Life and work
Giannini was born in Philadelphia on October 19, 1903. He began as a violinist under the tutelage of his mother Antonietta Briglia; he would go on to study violin and composition at the Milan Conservatory on scholarship, and then to take his graduate degree at the Juilliard School. He returned to Juilliard to teach, moving on to the Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music. His students included Herbie Hancock, Nicolas Flagello, David Amram, Mark Bucci, Alfred Reed, Anthony Iannaccone, M. William Karlins, Irwin Swack, John Corigliano, Adolphus Hailstork, Rolande Maxwell Young, Thomas Pasatieri, Avraham Sternklar, Mary Lynn Twombly, and Nancy Bloomer Deussen. Giannini was the founder and first president of the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1965, which he envisioned as a type of Juilliard of the South, bringing artists such as cellist Irving Klein and violinist Ruggiero Ricci to teach there. He remained there until his death in 1966.
Giannini's father, Ferruccio Giannini, was an opera singer and founder of the Verdi Opera House in Philadelphia. Vittorio's two sisters were celebrated singers as well. Euphemia Giannini Gregory taught Voice at the Curtis Institute for 40 years counting among her students the opera divas Anna Moffo and Judith Blegen. Dusolina Giannini was a dramatic soprano and prima donna who performed throughout Europe, until moving to the United States to sing with the Metropolitan Opera, and finally to spend her remaining years teaching. Dusolina was a pivotal figure in the success of some of her brother's operas. Her career was already well underway when she took the lead in the 1934 premiere (Munich) of his first opera, Lucedia, as well as the lead (Hester Prynne) in his 1937 opera based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (Hamburg, 1938). Both operas enjoyed successful premieres, but have never been produced again. His most successful opera proved to be a 1950 adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.
Giannini's partnership with poet Karl Flaster was a fruitful one. In addition to his work on The Scarlet Letter, Flaster was the librettist for several of Giannini's operas, including Lucedia and The Harvest. Flaster also provided the lyrics for dozens of Giannini's art songs, including several that have become staples of the song recital repertoire, most notably "Tell Me, Oh Blue Blue Sky," recorded by Mario Lanza, Leonard Warren, and others.
His operas and songs brought Giannini his initial success during the 1930s and early 1940s. (Beauty and the Beast was commissioned by CBS in 1938--the first opera composed specifically for radio.) He then began to focus on instrumental works, many of a diverting nature. Some of these works show a fondness for infusing Baroque forms with a romantic warmth. During his last few years he revealed a more serious side to his creative personality, broadening his tonal language with greater harmonic dissonance and melodic chromaticism, in the service of greater expressive depth, all within a romantic aesthetic framework. Among those considered his greatest works are the vocal monodrama The Medead, Psalm 130 for double-bass or cello and orchestra, and his Symphony No. 5. In addition to his seven symphonies (of which only the last five were numbered), he composed 15 operas and several concerti, as well as music for chorus, solo piano, and chamber ensembles. During the last eight years of his life he composed five works for wind band and, ironically, they are his most widely performed compositions today. One, his Symphony No. 3 (1958), has become a staple of the band repertoire. Despite the wide range of his output, little of his other music is in the active repertoire. However, today a representative sample of all aspects of his work is available on recording.
Giannini died in New York City on November 28, 1966, at the age of 63.
Selected works
Stabat mater (1922), SATB and orchestra
"Tell Me, O Blue, Blue Sky" (1927), voice/piano
String Quartet (1930)
Suite (1931), orchestra
Piano Quintet (1932)
Lucedia (1934), opera, libretto K. Flaster
Piano Concerto (1935)
Symphony ‘In memoriam Theodore Roosevelt’ (1935)
Organ Concerto (1937)
Triptych (1937), soprano choir and strings
IBM Symphony (1937), orchestra
Requiem (1937), choir and orchestra
The Scarlet Letter (1938), opera, libretto Flaster after Nathaniel Hawthorne
Beauty and the Beast (1938), radio opera in one act
Blennerhassett (1939), radio opera in one act
Sonata No. 1 (1940), violin and piano
"Sing to My Heart a Song" (c. 1942), voice/piano
Sonata No. 2 (1944), violin and piano
Variations on a Cantus firmus (1947), piano
The Taming of the Shrew (1950), opera, libretto by Giannini and D. Fee after Shakespeare
Symphony No. 1 (1950)
Divertimento No. 1 (1953), orchestra
Symphony No. 2 (1955), orchestra
Prelude and Fugue (1955), string orchestra
Fantasia for Band (1963), band
Preludium and Allegro (1958), symphonic band
Symphony No. 3 (1958), symphonic band
Symphony No. 4 (1959), orchestra
The Medead (1960), soprano and orchestra
The Harvest (1961), opera, libretto Flaster
Divertimento No. 2 (1961), orchestra
Antigone (1962), soprano and orchestra
Psalm cxxx (1963), bass/cello and orchestra
Sonata for Flute and Piano (1964), flute/piano
Variations and Fugue (1964), symphonic band
Symphony No. 5 (1965)
Servant of Two Masters (1966), opera, libretto B. Stambler, after C. Goldoni
Footnotes
References
Further reading
External links
Sound samples at walter-simmons.com
North Carolina School of the Arts history
1903 births
1966 deaths
20th-century classical composers
American male classical composers
American classical composers
Manhattan School of Music faculty
Neoromantic composers
American opera composers
Male opera composers
Musicians from Philadelphia
Milan Conservatory alumni
Juilliard School alumni
Juilliard School faculty
Curtis Institute of Music faculty
North Carolina School of the Arts faculty
American people of Italian descent
20th-century American composers
Classical musicians from Pennsylvania
20th-century American male musicians