Using History to make History: Goffredo Petrassi and the Heritage of Musical Tradition

In the musical panorama of the twentieth century Goffredo Petrassi’s work is notable for its significant lack of avant-garde aspirations and ideological tensions. A craftsman’s rigour, intellectual curiosity and creative imagination are the main ingredients of a musical thought that finds its own identity by drawing on a constant dialogue with a variety of stylistic models both recent and remote. The study of Petrassi’s music – as an artist, he was a leading figure in the events and anxieties of both the first and the second half of the twentieth century – may prove decisive in setting off wider reflections on the dynamics that regulate a twentieth-century composer’s relation with tradition. He is a figure who seems particularly emblematic today for at least three reasons: his profound historical knowledge, which is unequivocally evident in his way of composing and in his works; the spirit of exploration and experimental tension that feeds his creative thought; and his essential extraneousness from the ideology of technical progress perpetuated by the avant-garde, reflected in his dissociation from theoretical discussion and his reticence at formalising his compositional practice. In this article, the theory that Petrassi’s relation with tradition is the best key for interpreting his musical poetics will be examined more closely in a series of reflections that follow different lines of investigation. While the first section reconstructs the image of the composer that emerges from the reception of his work, the second concentrates on the question of compositional techniques, examining some hitherto unpublished documents that allow us a rapid foray into the ‘secrets of his workshop’. The last section takes us into his creative laboratory to inspect the expressive means and tools by which his historical knowledge emerges in the concrete work of composition. Il titolo del saggio – Using history, to make history – riprende una frase del sociologo Antony Giddens che definisce la modernità come l’epoca della “riflessività globale”, in cui l’artista acquista piena consapevolezza del suo rapporto dialettico con la storia, superando l’idea corrente della modernità intesa come rifiuto della tradizione e ricerca del nuovo. Partendo da questo quadro di riferimento teorico, si ipotizza che l’elemento qualificante della poetica di Goffredo Petrassi vada ricercato nella sua capacità di coltivare un rapporto di profonda complicità creativa con la tradizione. La prima parte del saggio propone una ricognizione dell’immagine del compositore che emerge dalla letteratura critica, che ha spesso evidenziato la difficoltà di definire i contorni di una personalità artistica sfuggente, eclettica, se non additittura mimetica, proprio per la sua attitudine ad utilizzare modelli musicali fortemente carichi di senso storico. La seconda parte del saggio si concentra sull’esame delle tecniche compositive, per verificare mezzi e strumenti espressivi attraverso cui la coscienza storica di Petrassi si manifesta nell’esercizio concreto della prassi creativa; soffermandosi, in particolare, sul rapporto con uno dei suoi principali modelli riferimento, Igor Stravinskij, che viene approfondito attraverso l’analisi di "Sestina d’autunno. Veni, creator Igor”, realizzata attraverso lo studio degli abbozzi compositivi e di altri documenti inediti conservati alla Paul Sacher Stiftung di Basilea.