adriano bassi

n.3/2000

Piero Gobetti and the music

Adriano Bassi

Going in search of the musical aspects one can find in writers, poets and more in general in literary men, stimulates fantasy and the attention of those used for "forma mentis" to keep within the music field "tout-court".
History, nevertheless, proves that many famous personages of literature push themselves to analyse and to outline their theories in musical territories.

That's the case of Piero Gobetti (1901-1926) who did not show a marked interest for music in his most articulated manifestation, by in detail directed his attention to the "theatre in music ". This point it's natural a question. Did Gobetti love music directly or indirectly? Why this question?

Because of his wife Ada Prospero who played the piano in an excellent way and that in formerly years have begun a fine work of musical persuasion of the Piemontese writer. To prove that, it can be reminded an important date both in the cultural and sentimental life of Gobetti, in 1919.
In fact he already directed "Energie nuove" and he was thinking seriously to found the "Rivoluzione liberale", gathering round himself the most important names of policy and culture.

One of the systematic aspects of the far-sightedness of the writer for the melodrama was the love and the respect for the Verdi's operas and in detail for the "Rigoletto" and the "Traviata" of which he attempted to highlight the social, political and costume aspect.
The "Verdi renaissance" did not yet started and in the first part of the XX° century it was Richard Wagner to dominate the opera scene in the cultural salons of the time. This concern, it can be quoted the sentence of the musicologist Guido Gasperini, in which we can sense the hard reality of the Verdi's production, especially in front of the new generation that loved Wagner's theories: "Since the most of the work of Verdi is not anymore the same age of our times, since the technique of the sizeable opera is evidently inferior or, I'll say it better, different from the technique created today, and finally, in this opera the musical thought develops by formulas different from the ones employed today..." (1)
In Gobetti, nevertheless, the Verdi's musical elements are not brought forward, but nevertheless, he goes on search of the social aspects united to a deep attention for the aesthetic going beyond the mere sounding product. Indubitably the life of the melodrama in Italy was troubled, since compositors as Casella, Malipiero, Pizzetti and others belonging to the so called "Eighty generation" attacked deeply the grounds of the opera, going in search of new paths basing on symphonic music.

In two letters addressed to Ada Prospero, possibly dated in 1919, one can catch the differences that Gobetti individuates between the Italian and French trend of thought: "Yesterday I've been to the "Zazà" by Leoncavallo, that is a rather contemptible thing and could be represented as well matching the IV act music with the I act of the libretto and so on... "Saturday I went to see the Manon" by Massenet: an endless sweetness and delicacy; it's the best opera among those I've heard" (2)
Getting back, briefly, to the two opera he loved, the "Traviata", and the "Rigoletto", the writer shows the will to entry deeply into the personages' psychology that give life to the theatrical works, analysing the protagonists from different points of view as for example the sense of the heroin and of feelings leading to Tears. To prove the understanding effort Gobetti carries out to put order in his musical world it can be quoted some extracts of two precious letters, written to Ada:

"(...) The Traviata this evening made me an impression opposite at all respect to the Rigoletto. Surely there's a certain progress as regard the latter, it's more wide-ranging (the prelude and the prelude to the last act) and a great force of musical elements condensed in few phrases (joy and torment to heart) and the sad and deep force of the frequent "joys, rejoice almost a transhumanating."
But there's no drama, it can be seen also in the skills built just to make it forcedly, as at the end of the last act where the solemn conclusion is not enough prepared. In the Rigoletto we had not fused elements. Here few elements and not well developed. There's no understanding among the personages. Anyone plays ones' own lyrics. The same elements repeat infinitely. Violetta smiles, suspires, suffers at any moment: there's no progress from frame of mind to catharsis "

Letter 29, VIII

I heard yesterday the Traviata, do you know it? Interpretation was very good and highlighted well the value of the opera and nevertheless many are the deficiencies that often, very often, I felt, standing all my inexperience, an enormous emptiness.

...Here it is then. In the Rigoletto I see a set of different elements intensively developed everyone by it self and so intensively that they cannot be merged in a equilibrate way. There are two or three central passions. But then others will develop so that the centre gets out of your control and you do not find it anymore.

...In the Traviata there is more freshness of means and solidity. There's more air. But there are serious mistakes, just the opposite of the Rigoletto.

... the Violetta of the first act has accents the same at all of those of the last ' So Alfred'. It lacks the passage of the frame of mind to catharsis. There's instead a certain lyricism in every act standing by itself as an insulated chant..."(3)

With Gobetti we face a cultural and political moment featured by a serious crisis and the melodrama becomes the opportunity to reassert the will to modify a tradition already inadequate, by searching styles and new ways in a moment when in music the eighteenth century fashion leaves place to the School of Vienna. In Gobetti, summing up, we find the germs of the new without excluding or abandoning the conquers of the past.

Notes:
(1) G. Gasperini: I caratteri peculiari del melodramma italiano nell'opera dei predecessori ed in quella di Verdi, R. Deputazione di Storia Patria, Parma 1913

(2) Massimo Mila: Piero Gobetti e la musica Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, January-March 1976 N.1 pag. 92 ERI

(3) M.Mila: in the work cited p. 91-92

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Piero Gobetti

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