(b Padua, 18 May 1875; d Tauriano di Spilimbergo, Friuli, 14 Aug 1961). Italian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He studied in Padua with Vittorio Orefice and Cesare Pollini (piano), who sent him in 1894 to Martucci at the Bologna Liceo Musicale. There he took a composition diploma (1897) and a law degree at the university (1901). Subsequently he studied in Germany, meeting Busoni, who advised and encouraged him. In 1900 he was appointed piano professor at the Bologna Liceo, and he then directed the conservatories of Parma (1905–12), Naples (1912–16) and Palermo (1916–22), ending his career as a piano teacher at the Milan Conservatory (1922–38, 1945–7). He worked intensively in each of these cities as a pianist, conductor, writer, promoter and instructor of young musicians. As a composer he followed the example of Martucci, both in his classical instrumental style and in his basically italianate melody, though he differed from his teacher in his great love for operatic music.
WORKS
(selective list)
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Stage: Astraea, op.18 (poema drammatico, F. Gaeta); Juturna (dramma musicale, 3, Isarco [E. Tolomei], after Aeneid)
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Orch: La tentazione di Gesù, sym. poem, 1909, rev. as Dal tramonto all'alba – Gesù di Nazareth, 1909; Ov., 1912; Andante e allegro con fuoco, pf, orch (1936); Impressioni sinfoniche da Napoleone, 1949; Preludio sinfonico
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Chbr: Sonata, d, op.7, vc, pf, 1898; Andante appassionato, vn, pf (1908); Pf Qnt, C, with tpt ad lib, c1917; Str Qt, a
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Pf: Sonatina, op.5 (1906); 4 fantasie, op.6 (1906); Sonata, E (1920); Imago, Solitudo (1933); Rimembranze (1950)
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Vocal: songs with pf/orch; sacred choral music
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Principal publishers: Bongiovanni, Breitkopf & Härtel, Carisch, Curci, Ricordi, Sonzogno, Tedeschi
| WRITINGS
Pensieri sulla musica (Bologna, 1903)
I regi istituti musicali d'Italia e il disegno di ruolo per il Conservatorio di Milano (Parma, 1908)
Nella vita del ritmo (Naples, 1916) [1 chap. in Eng. trans. as ‘The Creators of Modern Musical Idealities’, MQ, iii (1917), 319–39]
‘La musica contemporanea: note polemiche’, Bollettino bibliografico musicale, v/1 (1930), 20–36
Lo studio del pianoforte (Milan, 1923–34)
Intoduction to F. Fano: Giuseppe Martucci: saggio biografico-critico (Milan, 1950), 7–13
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DBI (N. Balata)
DEUMM
MGG1 (R. Allorto)
A. D'Angeli: ‘L'opera musicale di Guido Alberto Fano’, Cronaca musicale, xiii (1909), 256–60
I. Valetta: ‘Rassegna musicale: i concerti al Corea’, Nuova Antologia, xliv (1909), 331–2
F. Fano: ‘Di una corrispondenza di Guido M. Gatti con Guido Alberto Fano con notizie e considerazioni connesse’, Quadrivium, xiv (1973), 45–64
F. Fano: ‘La figura di Guido Alberto Fano’, Rassegna musicale Curci, xxviii/2–3 (1975), 41–4
FABIO FANO/ROBERTA COSTA
Fano, Michel
(b Paris, 9 Dec 1929). French composer. At the Paris Conservatoire his principal teachers were Boulanger (accompaniment, 1948–50) and Messiaen (analysis, 1950–53). His acquaintance with Boulez from 1950 led him to a fundamental rethinking of music and composition, and the few instrumental works that he has not withdrawn date from this period. The Sonata for two pianos represents one of the earliest attempts at a comprehensive serialization of durations and dynamics (R. Toop: ‘Messiaen/Goeyvaerts, Fano/Stockhausen, Boulez’, PNM, xiii/1, 1974–5, 141–69). It was first performed at the 1952 Donaueschingen Festival by the Schmidt-Neuhaus duo, then at Boulez’s Domaine Musical concerts. Also in 1952 the Etude for 15 instruments was composed for Darmstadt. Deeply impressed by Wozzeck, which drew his attention to the relationship between sight and sound, in 1954 he abandoned ‘pure’ composition to become an apprentice of the American film director Noel Burch. Since that time almost all of Fano’s work, whether as director, producer, composer or sound editor, has been for the cinema.
His first film was Chutes de pierre (1958), which he directed and for which Hodeir provided the score. The following years saw a fruitful collaboration with Robbe-Grillet (most notably in Trans-Europ express) and a highly original documentary film about animals, Le territoire des autres, in which Fano’s musique concrète soundtrack plays an important structural role. He rejects the customary conception of film music, regarding all of the sound elements in the film – speech, noises and music – as materials for composition and as interacting events. In the case of Le territoire des autres, the sound and visual parts of the film were prepared alongside each other; sophisticated editing techniques made possible a close integration of natural and artificial sounds, and a precise definition of relationships between images and soundtrack.
WORKS
(selective list)
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Concert works: Sonata, 2 pf, 1952; Etude, 15 insts, 1952; FAB, Mez, pf, synth, elec, in progress; extract for pf 1st perf. 1998
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Film soundtracks: L’immortelle (A. Robbe-Grillet), 1962; La bataille de France (dir. J. Aurel, 1963); L’enlèvement d’Antoine Bigut (dir. J. Doniol-Valcroze), 1963; Le 5ème soleil (dir. F. Reichenbach), 1964; Pierre Boulez, 1965; Volcans interdits (dir. H. Tazieff), 1965; Trans-Europ express (Robbe-Grillet), 1966; Le regard Picasso (dir. N. Kapplan), 1966; L’homme qui ment (Robbe-Grillet), 1968; L’Eden et après (Robbe-Grillet), 1970; Le territoire des autres (dir. F. Bel, G. Vienne, Fano), 1971
| WRITINGS
with P.-J. Jouve: Wozzeck, ou le nouvel opéra (Paris, 1953)
‘Introduction à la musique contemporaine’, Le point (1954), no.57
Other essays in Cahiers du cinéma
DOMINIQUE JAMEUX
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