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Bruno Maderna

{{short description|Italian composer and conductor}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Bruno Maderna

| image = Bruno Maderna.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Maderna in April 1972

| birth_name = Bruno Grossato

| birth_date = {{birth date|1920|04|21|df=y}}

| birth_place = Venice, Italy

| death_date = {{death date and age|1973|11|13|1920|04|21|df=y}}

| death_place = Darmstadt, Germany

| education = Rome Conservatory

| occupation = {{ubl| Composer | Violinist | Conductor }}

| works = List of compositions

| organizations = {{ubl| Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano | Milan Conservatory | Dartington International Summer School }}

| spouse =

| awards =

}}

Bruno Maderna (born Bruno Grossato, 21 April 1920 – 13 November 1973) was an Italian composer, conductor and academic teacher.

Life

Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but later decided to take the name of his mother, Caterina Carolina Maderna.Interview with Maderna's three children Caterina, Claudia and Andreas Maderna, Heidelberg 2019{{Full citation needed|date=December 2019|reason=presumably this is not a book-length publication, so the journal or newspaper title, issue date, and (in case it is a journal) page range are needed, as well as the name of the interviewer.}}{{sfn|Anon.|2011b}}{{Failed verification|date=December 2019|reason=neither his mother's name or his birth name are mentioned.}} At the age of four he began studying the violin with his grandfather. "My grandfather thought that if you could play the violin you could then do anything, even become the biggest gangster. If you play the violin you are always sure of a place in heaven."{{sfn|Patmore|n.d.}} As a child he played several instruments (violin, drums and accordion) in his father's small variety band. A child prodigy, in the early thirties he was not only performing violin concertos, he was already conducting orchestral concerts: first with the orchestra of La Scala in Milan, then in Trieste, Venice, Padua and Verona. He was originally Jewish.{{Cite news |last=Henahan |first=Donal |author-link=Donal Henahan |date=9 January 1972 |title=Toscanini or Boulez the Better Conductor? |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/09/archives/is-toscanini-or-boulez-the-better-conductor-bruno-maderna-about.html |access-date=10 January 2021 |quote=Maderna's own family had been Jews originally ... he found Jewish second cousins who were in danger of deportation and death.}}

Orphaned at the age of four,{{harvnb|Mattietti|2006}}. Maderna was adopted by a wealthy woman from Verona, Irma Manfredi, who saw to that he received a solid musical education. He took private lessons in harmony and musical composition from Arrigo Pedrollo from 1935 until 1937 and studied composition with Alessandro Bustini at the Rome Conservatory from 1937 until 1940.

After Rome he returned to Venice, where he attended the advanced course for composers (1940–42) organised by Gian Francesco Malipiero at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory (his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra dates from this time). He also studied conducting with Antonio Guarnieri at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (1941) and Hermann Scherchen in Venice (1948).{{sfn|Oron|2001}} Through Scherchen Maderna discovered twelve-tone technique and the music of the Second Viennese School.

During the Second World War he took part in the partisan resistance. From 1948 to 1952 he taught music theory at the Venice Conservatory. During this period he collaborated with Malipiero on critical editions of Italian early music. Fellow composers he met at this time included Luigi Dallapiccola and, at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Boulez, Messiaen, Cage, Pousseur, Nono and Stockhausen.

Conductor/teacher

File: Nino Rota Riccardo Bacchelli e Bruno Maderna.jpg and Riccardo Bacchelli in 1963]]

In 1950 Maderna started an international career as a conductor, first in Paris and Munich, then across Europe. In 1955 he founded the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano with Luciano Berio{{harvnb|Anon.|2011a}}; {{harvnb|De Benedictis|n.d.}} and Incontri musicali, a series of concerts disseminating contemporary music in Italy.

With his later wife Beate Christina Koepnick, a young actress from Darmstadt, Maderna had three children.

In 1957–58, at the invitation of Giorgio Federico Ghedini, he taught at the Milan Conservatory, and between 1960 and 1962 he lectured at Dartington International Summer School in England. From 1961 to 1966, Maderna and Pierre Boulez were the main directors of the International Kranichsteiner Kammerensemble in Darmstadt. Despite this heavy workload throughout these years Maderna found time to compose.

During the 1960s and '70s he spent much time in the United States, teaching and conducting. In 1971–72 he was appointed director of new music at Tanglewood. In 1972–73 he became the principal conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica of RAI in Milan.

Maderna died of lung cancer in Darmstadt in 1973, at the age of 53.

A number of composers wrote pieces in Maderna's memory, including Pierre Boulez (Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna){{Cite web |title=Boulez – Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna for orchestra in 8 groups |url=http://www.universaledition.com/Rituel-in-memoriam-Bruno-Maderna-Pierre-Boulez/composers-and-works/composer/88/work/4426 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304115917/http://www.universaledition.com/Rituel-in-memoriam-Bruno-Maderna-Pierre-Boulez/composers-and-works/composer/88/work/4426 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=9 January 2016}} and Luciano Berio (Calmo for voice and orchestra).{{Cite web |title=Berio – Calmo for mezzo-soprano and 22 instruments |url=http://www.universaledition.com/Calmo-Luciano-Berio/composers-and-works/composer/54/work/1431 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160203143612/http://www.universaledition.com/Calmo-Luciano-Berio/composers-and-works/composer/54/work/1431 |archive-date=3 February 2016 |access-date=9 January 2016}} Earle Brown's Centering, dedicated to the memory of Maderna, ends with a short quotation from Maderna's First Oboe Concerto.{{sfn|Anon.|2013}}

Work

{{See also|List of compositions by Bruno Maderna}}

Maderna composed much music in all genres: instrumental, chamber, concertos and electronic, as well as large amounts of incidental music (for theatre and radio) and transcriptions and editions of early music.

At the heart of Maderna's output are a number of concertos, including one for violin, one for two pianos, two for solo piano and several for flute and orchestra. He was particularly drawn to the oboe, composing three concertos in all: the first in 1962–63 followed by two more in 1967 and 1973.{{sfn|Anon.|2011b}}

Other major orchestral works include Aura and Biogramma (both 1967) and Quadrivium, for four percussionists and four orchestral groups (premiered at the 1969 Royan Festival). Giuseppe Sinopoli recorded all three of these pieces with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1979. Maderna's Requiem, composed between 1944 and 1946, was rediscovered and performed in 2009; the American composer Virgil Thomson saw an unfinished version of the score in 1946 and praised it as a masterpiece.{{Cite journal |last=di Luzio |first=Claudia |year=2014 |title=Maderna's Requiem Recovered |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/article/537007 |journal=Notes |publisher=Music Library Association |volume=70 |number=3}}{{sfn|Clements|2015}}{{Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Philip |date=December 2015 |title=Maderna Requiem |url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/maderna-requiem |journal=Gramophone |access-date=16 November 2019}}

Bruno Maderna also produced scores for eight films and two documentaries. The last of these was for Giulio Questi's thriller La morte ha fatto l'uovo in 1968.{{sfn|Anon.|n.d.}}

His opera, Satyricon, was premiered in 1973.

Maderna was certainly also a prominent composer in genres such as electronic music, experimental music and avant-garde music. His work Musica su due dimensioni for flute, cymbals, and tape, which premiered at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in 1952, is one of the earliest examples of a composer combining acoustic and electronic sounds.{{cite book | last=Griffiths | first=Paul | title=Modern Music and After | publisher=Oxford University Press on Demand | publication-place=Oxford | date=1995 | isbn=0-19-816511-0 | page=}}{{Cite web |title=Music in Two Dimensions: Works for Flute – Mode Records |url=https://moderecords.com/catalog/260_maderna/ |access-date=11 April 2022 |language=en-US}}

Recordings (as a conductor)

Notes

{{reflist}}

References

  • {{Cite encyclopedia |year=2011a |title=Bruno Maderna |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/355739/Bruno-Maderna |access-date=22 November 2011 |author=Anon.}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Anon. |url=http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Maderna-Bruno.htm |title=Bruno Maderna |publisher=bach-cantatas.com |year=2011b |quote=Compositeur et chef d'orchestre italien né le 21 avril 1920 à Venise, mort le 13 novembre 1973 à Darmstadt, Allemagne |access-date=8 January 2016}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Anon. |url=http://www.earle-brown.org/works/view/10 |title=Centering |date=2013 |access-date=8 January 2016}}
  • {{Cite web |last=Anon. |year=n.d. |title=La morte ha fatto l'uovo |trans-title=Death Laid an Egg |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061994/ |access-date=10 January 2016 |website=IMDb}}
  • {{Cite web |last=Clements |first=Dominy |date=2015 |title=Bruno Maderna (1920–1973) / Requiem (1946) |url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Nov/Maderna_requiem_C5231.htm |access-date=25 September 2019 |website=musicweb-international.com}}
  • {{Cite book |last=De Benedictis |first=Angela Ida |url=http://www.lucianoberio.org/en/node/1154 |title=Biography: Bruno Maderna |publisher=Centro Studi Luciano Berio |year=n.d. |translator-last=Mark Weir |access-date=8 January 2016}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Mattietti |first=Gianluigi |url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bruno-maderna_(Dizionario_Biografico) |title=Maderna, Bruno |year=2006 |volume=67 |access-date=10 January 2016}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Oron |first=Aryeh |url=http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Maderna-Bruno.htm |title=Bruno Maderna (Conductor, Composer) |year=2001 |access-date=8 January 2016}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Patmore |first=David |url=http://www.naxos.com/person/Bruno_Maderna/47127.htm |title=Bruno Maderna |year=n.d. |access-date=10 January 2016}}

Further reading

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  • {{Cite journal |last=Baroni |first=Mario |year=2003 |title=The Macroform in Post-tonal Music: Listening and Analysis |journal=Musicae Scientiae |edition=Fall |volume=7 |pages=219–240 |doi=10.1177/102986490300700202 |s2cid=146970743 |ref=none |number=2}}
  • {{Cite book |title=Pour Bruno. Memorie e ricerche su Bruno Maderna |publisher=Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana |year=2015 |editor-last=Baroni |editor-first=Mario |ref=none |editor-last2=Dalmonte |editor-first2=Rossana}}
  • {{Cite book |title=Bruno Maderna, Documenti |publisher=Edizioni Suvini Zerboni |year=1985 |editor-last=Baroni |editor-first=Mario |location=Milan |ref=none |editor-last2=Dalmonte |editor-first2=Rossana}}
  • {{Cite book |title=Studi su Bruno Maderna |publisher=Edizioni Suvini Zerboni |year=1989 |editor-last=Baroni |editor-first=Mario |location=Milan |ref=none |editor-last2=Dalmonte |editor-first2=Rossana}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Clark |first=Philip |title=Thoroughly Modern Maderna |year=2011 |edition=January |pages=44–45 |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |title=Bruno Maderna. Studi e Testimonianze |publisher=LIM |year=2004 |editor-last=Dalmonte |editor-first=Rossana |location=Lucca |ref=none |editor-last2=Russo |editor-first2=Marco}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Dalmonte, Rossana |title=Maderna [Grossato], Bruno [Brunetto] |publisher=Macmillan Publishers |year=2001 |editor-last=Stanley Sadie |edition=second |location=London |ref=none |editor-last2=John Tyrrell}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Drees |first=Stefan |year=2000 |title=Renaissance-Musik als Inspirationsquelle für das Komponieren Bruno Madernas und Luigi Nonos |journal=The Past in the Present |location=Budapest & Visegrád |publisher=IMS Intercongressional Symposium and the 10th Meeting of the Cantus Planus |volume=1 |pages=545–558 |isbn=978-963-7181-34-4 |quote=Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem |ref=none |editor=László Dobszay}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Fabbi |first=Roberto |year=2002 |title=Cena sociale. Satyricon e il 'politico |journal=Musica/Realtà |volume=67 |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Fearn |first=Raymond |title=Bruno Maderna |publisher=Harwood Academic Publishers |year=1990 |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Fearn |first=Raymond |year=2000 |title=Luft von anderem Planeten...': The presence of the Epitaph of Seikilos in Bruno Maderna's Composizione no. 2 (1950) |journal=The Past in the Present |location=Budapest & Visegrád |publisher=IMS Intercongressional Symposium and the 10th Meeting of the Cantus Planus |volume=1 |pages=559–568 |isbn=978-963-7181-34-4 |quote=Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem |ref=none |editor=László Dobszay}}
  • {{Cite book |title=À Bruno Maderna |publisher=Éditions de Basalte |year=2007 |editor-last=Feneyrou |editor-first=Laurent |location=Paris |ref=none |editor-last2=Mathon |editor-first2=Geneviève |editor-last3=Ferrari |editor-first3=Giordano}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Ferrari |first=Giordano |title=Les débuts du théatre musical d'avant-garde en Italie. Berio, Evangelisti, Maderna |publisher=L'Harmattan |year=2000 |location=Paris |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Gagné |first=Nicole V. |title=Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-8108-6765-9 |location=Lanham, Maryland |ref=none}} E-book: {{ISBN|978-0-8108-7962-1}}
  • {{BrahmsOnline|2132}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=di Luzio |first=Claudia |year=2004 |editor2-last=Gernot Gruber |editor3-last=Jürgen Kühnel |title=Traumnahe Welten—weltnahe Träume: Zum Verhältnis von Traum und Wirklichkeit im Musiktheater von Luciano Berio und Bruno Maderna |journal=Traum und Wirklichkeit in Theater und Musiktheater: Vorträge und Gespräche des Salzburger Symposions |location=Salzburg |publisher=Mueller-Speiser |volume=62 |pages=342–356. Wort und Musik: Salzburger akademische Beiträge |isbn=978-3-85145-099-6 |ref=none |editor=Peter Csobádi}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Mathon |first=Geneviève |year=2003 |title=À propos du Satyricon de Bruno Moderna |journal=Musique et Dramaturgie: Esthétique de la Représentation Au XXème Siècle |location=Paris |publisher=Publications de la Sorbonne |volume=Esthétique 7 |pages=571–593 |isbn=978-2-85944-472-3 |ref=none |editor=Laurent Feneyrou}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Mila |first=Massimo |title=Maderna musicista europeo |publisher=Piccola biblioteca Einaudi |year=1999 |isbn=978-88-06-15059-4 |editor-last=Einaudi |volume=nuova serie 17 |location=Turin |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Neidhofer |first=Christoph |title='Blues' through the Serial Lens: Transformational Process in a Fragment by Bruno Maderna |year=2005 |edition=March |volume=18 |pages=14–20 |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Neidhofer |first=Christoph |title=Bruno Madernas flexibler Materialbegriff: Eine Analyse des Divertimento in due tempi (1953) |year=2005 |edition=January |volume=9 |pages=30–47 |ref=none |issue=33}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Neidhofer |first=Christoph |year=2007 |title=Bruno Maderna's Serial Arrays |journal=Music Theory Online |edition=March |volume=13 |doi=10.30535/mto.13.1.2 |ref=none |doi-access=free |number=1}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Palazzetti |first=Nicolò |title=Italian Harmony during the Second World War. Analysis of Bruno Maderna's First String Quartet |year=2015 |volume=21 |pages=63–91 |ref=none |issue=1}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=van de Poel |first=Piet Hein |year=2003 |title=Bruno Maderna sur le Satyricon: Pop art en musique |journal=Musique et Dramaturgie: Esthétique de la Représentation Au XXème Siècle |location=Paris |publisher=Publications de la Sorbonne |pages=599–601 |ref=none |editor=Laurent Feneyrou}}
  • {{Cite news |last=Service |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Service |date=13 November 2013 |title=Remembering Bruno Maderna |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/nov/13/bruno-maderna-composer-conductor |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |title=Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A Biographical Sourcebook |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2002 |editor-last=Sitsky, Larry |location=Westport Connecticut and London |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Suvini-Hand |first=Vivienne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NPfgFZzEer8C&q=Maderna+RAI+1971&pg=PA151 |title=Bruno Maderna's Ausstrahlung Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy |publisher=Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-904350-60-6 |volume=16 |location=London |pages=151–178 |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Verzina |first=Nicola |title=Bruno Maderna: Etude historique et critique |publisher=L'Harmattan |year=2003 |isbn=978-2-7475-4409-2 |location=Paris |ref=none}}
  • {{Cite book |last=Zender, Hans |title=Neue Musik erwartet Selbstandigkeit |last2=Roland Diry |last3=Suzanne Laurentius |year=2007 |edition=January |volume=24 |page={{Page needed|date=November 2011}} |ref=none |author-link=Hans Zender}}
  • Bruno Maderna (2020), Amore e curiosità. Scritti, frammenti e interviste sulla musica, ed. by Angela Ida De Benedictis, Michele Chiappini and Benedetta Zucconi. Milan: Il Saggiatore. {{ISBN|978-88-428-2721-4}}.

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External links

  • [http://www.modernworks.com/repertoire/composers.html Madeleine Shapiro's Modernworks website, short biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100301210000/http://www.modernworks.com/repertoire/composers.html |date=1 March 2010 }}
  • [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Maderna-Bruno.htm Bruno Maderna (Conductor)] Bach Cantatas Website]
  • [http://www.naxos.com/conductorinfo/Bruno_Maderna/47127.htm Naxos biography of Maderna] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723233731/http://www.naxos.com/conductorinfo/Bruno_Maderna/47127.htm |date=23 July 2008 }}
  • [http://www.cdmc.asso.fr/en/saison_cdmc/conferences_colloques/liking_bruno_maderna Liking Bruno Madera]

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Category:1920 births

Category:1973 deaths

Category:Musicians from Venice

Category:People from Chioggia

Category:20th-century Italian classical composers

Category:20th-century male composers

Category:Twelve-tone and serial composers

Category:Italian male classical composers

Category:Italian male conductors (music)

Category:Conservatorio Santa Cecilia alumni

Category:Deutsche Grammophon artists

Category:Milan Conservatory alumni

Category:Italian emigrants to Germany

Category:Academic staff of Milan Conservatory

Category:20th-century Italian conductors (music)

Category:20th-century Italian male musicians

Category:Deaths from lung cancer in Germany

Category:Italian film score composers

Category:Italian male film score composers