Bruno Maderna, who was born as Bruno Grossato, lived from April 21, 1920, to November 13, 1973. He was an Italian composer, conductor, and teacher at a university.

Life

Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but later chose to use his mother’s name, Caterina Carolina Maderna. At age four, he began learning the violin from his grandfather. His grandfather believed that playing the violin could help someone achieve anything, even become a famous gangster. He also said that playing the violin could guarantee a place in heaven. As a child, he played the violin, drums, and accordion in his father’s small music group. A very talented child, in the early 1930s, he performed violin concertos and conducted orchestral concerts. He first conducted with the orchestra of La Scala in Milan, then in Trieste, Venice, Padua, and Verona. He was born Jewish.

After losing both parents at age four, Maderna was adopted by a wealthy woman from Verona named Irma Manfredi. She ensured he received a strong musical education. From 1935 to 1937, he had private lessons in harmony and composition with Arrigo Pedrollo. From 1937 to 1940, he studied composition with Alessandro Bustini at the Rome Conservatory.

After leaving Rome, he returned to Venice, where he joined an advanced course for composers from 1940 to 1942 at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory, led by Gian Francesco Malipiero. During this time, he wrote his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. He also studied conducting with Antonio Guarnieri at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena in 1941 and with Hermann Scherchen in Venice in 1948. Through Scherchen, Maderna learned about the twelve-tone technique and the music of the Second Viennese School.

During World War II, he helped fight against the enemy. From 1948 to 1952, he taught music theory at the Venice Conservatory. During this time, he worked with Malipiero to create updated versions of Italian early music. He met other composers, including Luigi Dallapiccola, and attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, where he met Boulez, Messiaen, Cage, Pousseur, Nono, and Stockhausen.

Conductor/teacher

In 1950, Maderna began a career as a conductor internationally, starting in Paris and Munich, then working across Europe. In 1955, he helped create the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano with Luciano Berio and started Incontri musicali, a series of concerts that shared contemporary music in Italy.

Maderna married Beate Christina Koepnick, a young actress from Darmstadt, and they had three children.

From 1957 to 1958, at the invitation of Giorgio Federico Ghedini, Maderna taught at the Milan Conservatory. Between 1960 and 1962, he gave lectures at the Dartington International Summer School in England. From 1961 to 1966, Maderna and Pierre Boulez led the International Kranichsteiner Kammerensemble in Darmstadt. Despite his busy schedule during these years, Maderna still found time to compose music.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Maderna spent much time in the United States, teaching and conducting. In 1971–72, he was named 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. Many composers wrote pieces to honor Maderna, including Pierre Boulez (Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna) and Luciano Berio (Calmo for voice and orchestra). Earle Brown’s Centering, dedicated to Maderna, ends with a short quote from Maderna’s First Oboe Concerto.

Work

Maderna created music in many different styles, including instrumental, chamber, concertos, electronic, and more. He also wrote a lot of music for plays, radio, and made copies of old music.

Many of Maderna's most important works are concertos. These include one for violin, one for two pianos, two for solo piano, and several for flute and orchestra. He especially liked writing for the oboe, creating three concertos: the first between 1962 and 1963, and two more in 1967 and 1973.

Other major orchestral works include Aura and Biogramma (both from 1967) and Quadrivium, written for four percussionists and four groups of musicians. This piece was first performed at the 1969 Royan Festival. Giuseppe Sinopoli recorded all three pieces with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1979. Maderna's Requiem, written 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 called it a masterpiece.

Bruno Maderna also wrote music for eight movies and two documentaries. The last of these was for Giulio Questi’s thriller La morte ha fatto l'uovo in 1968.

His opera, Satyricon, was first performed in 1973.

Maderna was also a well-known composer in styles such as electronic music, experimental music, and avant-garde music. His piece Musica su due dimensioni, written for flute, cymbals, and tape, was one of the first to mix live and electronic sounds. It was first performed at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in 1952.

Recordings (as a conductor)

• Luna Alcalay: A Stanza from Dante (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; ORF Choir; AKM Orf; 1967)
• Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Alfred Brendel; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Stradivarius; 1973)
• Alban Berg: Orchestral Songs Based on Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg, Op. 4 (Halina Lukomska; Concertgebouw Orchestra; RCO Live; 1968) Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6 (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1969) Wozzeck (Chorus of the Hamburg State Opera; Orchestra of the Hamburg State Opera; Toni Blankenheim, Richard Cassilly, Peter Haage, Gerhard Unger; Art Haus Musik, 1970) Lulu (Rome RAI Orchestra; Ilona Steingruber, Eugenia Zareska, Luisa Ribacchi, Maria Teresa, Massa Ferrero; live 1959; Stradivarius, 1959) Lulu Suite (Mary Lindsay, soprano; South German Radio Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1969)
• Konrad Boehmer: Position (WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne; BVHaast, 1963)
• Pierre Boulez: Le marteau sans maître (Carla Henius, alto; Severino Gazzelloni, flute; Dino Asciolla, viola; Leonida Torrebruno, percussion; Stradivarius, 1961) Figures—Doubles—Prismes (Residentie Orkest; Stradivarius, 1968) Polyphonie X (RAI Orchestra; Stradivarius, 1953)
• Johannes Brahms: Double Concerto (Salvatore Accardo, violin; Siegfried Palm, cello; RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1961)
• Earle Brown: Available Forms I on Panorama della musica nuova (RCA MLDS 61005, 1964)
• Åke Hermanson: In nuce, Op. 7 (Caprice 22056)
• Günter Kahowez: Plejaden No. 2 (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; AKM Orf; 1966)
• Włodzimierz Kotoński: Canto (International Kranichsteiner Chamber Ensemble; Wergo, ?)
• György Ligeti: Aventures / Nouvelles Aventures (International Darmstadt Chamber Ensemble; Wergo, 1968)
• Franz Liszt: Tasso: Lament and Triumph (RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1964)
• Witold Lutosławski: Jeux Vénitiens (Concertgebouworkest; RCO Live, 1967)
• Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 7 (Vienna Philharmonic; Hunt, 1967) Symphony No. 9 (BBC Symphony Orchestra; BBC, 1970)
• Gian Francesco Malipiero: Symphony of the Zodiac (RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra; Ricordi, ?)
• Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 (Scottish) (Concertgebouworkest; RCO Live, 1965)
• Claudio Monteverdi: L'Orfeo (Oralia Dominguez, mezzo-soprano; Barry McDaniel, baritone; Choir of the Dutch National Opera; Utrecht Symphony Orchestra; Holland Festival, 1966)
• Mozart: Symphony No. 18, KV 130 (RAI Milan Orchestra; Stradivarius, ?)
• Bo Nilsson: Szene No. 3, 1961 (International Kranichsteiner Chamber Ensemble; Wergo)
• Luigi Nono: The Suspended Song (Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of the North German Radio; Stradivarius, 1960)
• Krzysztof Penderecki: Victims of Hiroshima (RAI Rome Orchestra; Stradivarius, 1963)
• Goffredo Petrassi: Noche Oscura (Chorus and Orchestra of the Hessian Radio; Stradivarius, 1952)
• Henri Pousseur: Rimes for Different Sound Sources [for ensemble and pre-recorded sound on magnetic tape] on Panorama della musica nuova (RCA MLDS 61005, 1964)
• Maurice Ravel: The Spanish Hour (Suzanne Danco; Michel Hamel; John Cameron; André Vessières; Jean Giraudeau; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Stradivarius, 1960)
• Arnold Schoenberg: Transfigured Night, Op. 4 (Vienna Philharmonic; Arkadia, 1969) Pelleas and Melisande, Op. 5 (Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1960) Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16 (RAI Turin Orchestra; Stradivarius, ?) Serenade, Op. 24 / Suite, Op. 29 (London Melos Ensemble; Decca, 1962) Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (West German Radio Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1961) Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (Christiane Edinger; Saarland Radio Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1971) Chamber Symphony No. 2, Op. 38 (Saarland Radio Symphony Orchestra; Arkadia, 1970) Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (Alfred Brendel; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Stradivarius, 1973) Genesis, Op. 44 (Chorus