Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Messa Di Requiem: Neo-Renaissance Choral Practices in Twentieth-Century Italy

Abstract

Though he was known mostly for his operas during his lifetime, Ildebrando Pizzetti is hailed as one of “the greatest of the vocal polyphonists that Italy has had since the glorious period of choral polyphony in 1500-1600.” His unaccompanied choral music is not often performed, though similar works of some of his contemporaries have made their way into the standard choral repertoire (i.e. Ralph Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor and Frank Martin Mass for Double Choir). Pizzetti’s compositional idiom is unique, and Messa di Requiem in particular is a masterwork deserving of much attention. Through his combined use of sixteenth-century contrapuntal techniques, conservative text setting, Romantic harmonies, and varied textures, Pizzetti successfully creates a distinctive liturgical setting that pays homage to Italy’s past, resulting in a work of haunting beauty and resigned expression of faith that deserves a prominent place in the twentieth-century choral canon. This paper analyses Pizzetti’s work using five style features, and demonstrates that Pizzetti makes full use of compositional methods of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This analysis then applies Pizzetti’s compositional methods to modern day performance practice, explicating in detail how a conductor could approach the rehearsal and performance of this work.