Gian Francesco Malipiero

Born in Venice, the grandson of the opera composer Francesco Malipiero, he was prevented by family troubles from pursuing his musical education in a consistent manner. After stopping counterpoint lessons with Marco Enrico Bossi, Malipiero continued study on his own by copying out early Italian music of such composers as Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi, beginning a lifelong commitment to Italian music of that period. In 1904 he went to Bologna and sought out Bossi to continue his studies. After graduating, Malipiero became an assistant to the blind composer Antonio Smareglia.

Malipiero first heard Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps in Paris in 1913 soon after meeting Alfredo Casella. At this time he won four composition prizes at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome by shady means, by entering five different compositions under five different pseudonyms.

In 1923, he joined with Alfredo Casella and Gabriele D'Annunzio in creating the Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche. Malipiero was on good terms with Mussolini until he set Pirandello's libretto La favola del figlio cambiato, earning the condemnation of the fascists. Malipiero dedicated his next opera, Giulio Cesare, to Mussolini, but this did not help him.

After settling in the little town of Asolo for good in 1921, Malipiero began the editorial work for which he would become best known, a complete edition of all of Monteverdi's oeuvre, from 1926 to 1942, and after 1952, editing much of Antonio Vivaldi's concerti at the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi.