GHEDINI – Madrigal (1913) – FOUR CELLOS

Other Identification:
Giorgio Federico Ghedini was born in Cuneo in 1892. He studied organ, piano and composition in Turin, then graduated in composition from the Bologna Conservatory under Marco Enrico Bossi in 1911. He worked as conductor for a certain time, then he gave up to devote himself to teaching.

He was a teacher of composition in Turin (1918–1937), Parma (1937–1941), and finally Milan, where he directed the local Conservatory (1951–1962). Among his pupils, the most eminent were Marcello and Claudio Abbado, Luciano Berio, Guido Cantelli, Niccolò Castiglioni, Carlo Pinelli, and Fiorenzo Carpi. He was also active at various times as an adviser to Italian radio and to the Teatro alla Scala, and as an organizer of the Settimane Musicali Senesi and the Italian branch of the ISCM. He died in Nervi, near Genoa, in 1965.

As a composer Ghedini was slow in making his mark outside a small circle of friends and colleagues, and began to attract wider notice only in the late 1920s. By the 1930s his horizons were widening. He was a deep lover of ancient music, transcribing many works by such composers as Girolamo Frescobaldi, Claudio Monteverdi, and Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. Ghedini’s works are often inspired by music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, but combined with a very personal language which combines ancient and modern styles. During the 1950s and 60s Ghedini showed little inclination to break new ground. He tended, rather, to retreat from his ‘advanced’ position of the 1940s. Among his masterworks are a Concerto for orchestra (in memory of Guido Cantelli), two violin concertos ‘Il Belprato’ and ‘Concentus Basiliensis’, and a concerto for two cellos L’Olmeneta (The Elm Grove) and Musica Notturna (Night Music).

Ghedini’s most celebrated concert piece is Concerto dell’Albatro (Albatross Concerto) for violin, cello, piano, narrator and orchestra, which includes fragments from Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick in its final movement. He wrote a large number of chamber, vocal and choral works. He also wrote a one-act opera based on Melville’s Billy Budd, which was first performed in 1949.