Life

Aldo Clementi was born in Catania, Italy. He studied the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, graduating in 1946. His studies in composition began in 1941, and his teachers included Alfredo Sangiorgi and Goffredo Petrassi

Goffredo Petrassi

Goffredo Petrassi was an Italian composer of modern classical music, conductor, and teacher. He is considered one of the most influential Italian composers of the twentieth century.-Life:...

. After receiving his diploma in 1954, he attended the Darmstadt summer courses from 1955 to 1962. Important influences during this period included meeting Bruno Maderna

Bruno Maderna

Bruno Maderna was an Italian conductor and composer. For the last ten years of his life he lived in Germany and eventually became a citizen of that country.-Biography:...

 in 1956, and working at the electronic music studio of the Italian radio broadcaster RAI in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

Poesia de Rilke (1946) was the first work of his to be performed (Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, 1947). Of more significance was the premiere of Cantata (1954), which was broadcast by North German Radio

Norddeutscher Rundfunk

Norddeutscher Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR transmits for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein...

 (Hamburg) in 1956. In 1959 he won second prize in the ISCM competition with Episodi (1958), and in 1963 he took first prize in the same competition, with Sette scene da "Collage" (1961).

He taught music theory at the University of Bologna from 1971 to 1992.

Clementi died on 3 March 2011.

Style

In 1983 David Fanning

David Fanning (musicologist)

David Fanning is a professor of music at the University of Manchester. He is an expert on the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, Carl Nielsen and Soviet music...

 described Clementi's style of decelerating canons as "sharing in the widespread post-serial depression of the 1970s", while in 1988 Paul Griffiths

Paul Griffiths (writer)

Paul Griffiths is a British music critic, novelist and librettist. He is particularly noted for his writings on modern classical music and for having written the libretti for two 20th century operas, Tan Dun's Marco Polo and Elliott Carter's What Next?.-Biography and career:Paul Griffiths was...

 referred to the "Alexandrian simplicity of his solution to the current confusion in music. Clementi himself described his works as "an extremely dense counterpoint, relegating the parts to the shameful role of inaudible, cadaverous micro-organisms".

His music has been featured at Ultima, the Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (2009), performed and recorded by ensembles including the Quatuor Bozzini, the Ives Ensemble and the Contemporary Music Ensemble of Wales and broadcast by BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

.

Selected works

• Episodi (1958) for orchestra
  Orchestra
  An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
  
  
• Ideogrammi n. 1 (1959) for 16 instruments
• Triplum (1960) for flute
  Flute
  The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
  
  , oboe
  Oboe
  The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
  
   and clarinet
  Clarinet
  The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
  
  
• Collage (1961) - stage work
• Informel 2 (1962) for 15 performers
• Collage 2 (1962) for electronics
• Informel 3 (1961–63) for orchestra
• Intavolatura (1963) for harpsichord
  Harpsichord
  A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
  
  
• Variante A (1964) for mixed chorus
  Choir
  A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
  
   and orchestra
• Concerto (1970) for piano and 7 instruments
• Concerto (1975) for piano, 24 instruments and carillon
  Carillon
  A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
  
  s
• Clessidra (1976) for chamber orchestra
• L'orologio di Arcevla (1979) for 13 performers
• Variazioni (1979) for viola solo
• Capriccio (1979–1980) for viola and 24 instruments
• Dodici variazioni (1980) for solo guitar
  Classical guitar
  The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...
  
  
• Fantasia su roBErto FABbriCiAni (1980–81) for flute and tape
• Es (1981) - stage work
• Parafrasi (1981) 18 voice canon
  Canon (fiction)
  In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
  
   realized with processor
• Adagio (1983) for quintet with prepared piano
  Prepared piano
  A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers....
  
  
• Ouverture (1984) for 12 flutes
• Concerto (1986) for piano and 14 instruments
• Fantasia (1987) for 4 guitars
• Tribute (1988) for string quartet
  String quartet
  A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
  
  
• Berceuse (1989) for orchestra
• Romanza (1991) for piano and orchestra
• The Plaint (1992) for female voice and 13 instruments
• Sonate Y. (2002) for solo violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  

Further reading

• Clementi, Aldo, Maria Rosa De Luca, Salvatore Enrico Failla, and Graziella Seminara. 2005. Per Aldo Clementi: nell'occasione dei suoi ottant'anni, 25 maggio 2005. Catania: Università degli studi di Catania.
• Cresti, Renzo. 1990. Aldo Clementi: studio monografico e intervista. Milan: Edizioni Suvini Zerboni.
• Lux, Simonetta, and Daniela Tortora. 2005. Collage 1961: un'azione dell'arte di Achille Perilli e Aldo Clementi. Luxflux proto type arte contemporanea, Documenti 1. Rome: Gangemi. ISBN 8849207794
• Mattietti, Gianluigi. 2001. Geometrie di musica: il periodo diatonico di Aldo Clementi. Lucca: Libreria musicale italiana. ISBN 8870962946
• Osmond-Smith, David. 1981. "Aux creux néant musicien: Recent Work by Aldo Clementi". Contact, no. 23:5–9.
• Osmond-Smith, David. 2001. "Clementi, Aldo". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   and John Tyrrell
  John Tyrrell (professor of music)
  John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
  
  . London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Seminara, Graziella, and Maria Rosa De Luca (eds.). 2008. Canoni, figure, carillons: itinerari della musica di Aldo Clementi: atti dell'incontro di studi, Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, Catania, 30–31 maggio 2005. Milan: Suvini Zerboni. ISBN 9788890069153