Bruni Tedeschi

Alberto Bruni Tedeschi is a unique personality in the Italian music world: he divided his life between industry, composition and collecting art. Born in Turin, he studied composition under Giorgio Federico Ghedini and law at the same time.

His first opera "Villon", according to a book by Tullio Pinelli (the author of "La Dolce Vita") was premiered by the great singer Giulietta Simionato, and the conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni, in Bergamo in 1941. 

In 1948 Hermann Scherchen directed his "Variations for Orchestra" at the festival for contemporary music in Venice and, 3 years later Scherchen christened his "Mass for the Nyondo Mission" in Hamburg. In 1953 he received the "Premio Trieste" for his symphonic poem, "Birkenhead".

In 1959 artists of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan presented one of his most important compositions "Diagramma Circolare, dramatic action in two parts" in the Teatro La Fenice in Venice; in this work, Bruni Tedeschi also wrote the text together with Gian Piero Bona. 

In the same year Alberto Bruni Tedeschi was named manager of the most important theatre in Italy, the Teatro Regio in Turin, which he directed until 1971. His impulses are to be thanked for this theatre being rebuilt and now being considered one of the most modern opera houses in Europe. 

Among the most important premieres of his works: "The Mass" (La Scala, Milan), the ballet "Diario Marino" (Teatro San Carlo, Naples), the "Requiem without Words" (Radio France, Paris), the piano concert "Fantasia - Recitativo quasi una danza" (Santa Cecilia, Rome), etc.
His opera "Paolino, la giusta causa e una buona ragione", which was premiered at the Festival in Spoleto in 1978, was filmed with the following cast: Charles Aznavour, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Isabel von Karajan. 

In 1987 "Secondatto" (Acropolis, Nice) was created; this opera may be considered to be a continuation of "Diagramma Circolare".
His last performance was "Il Mobile Rosso", staged at the Avignon Opera in 1994: a work whose inspiration lay in his passion for art and collecting and his long, constant interest in the world of antiques.

His last composition is the ballet "Diario, Ultime pagine", composed between 1992 and 1994, in which he felt the need to describe the illness and the end of the life of a man. Immediately after he fell ill and died in Paris on 17 February 1996.