Casella, Alfredo

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies

(älfrā´dō käsĕl´lä), 1883–1947, Italian composer, pianist, conductor, and writer on music; pupil of Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatory. He taught piano at the Paris Conservatory (1911–15) and at the St. Cecilia Conservatory, Rome (1915–23). In 1917 he organized a society, later known as Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche, to promote the recognition of contemporary music. He is the author of The Evolution of Music throughout the History of the Perfect Cadence (tr. 1924). His best-known compositions are the ballets Il convento veneziano (1912) and La Giara (Paris, 1924), the latter based on a novel by Pirandello. Other works are piano pieces, songs, chamber music, orchestral works, and concertos.

See his memoirs, Music in My Time (tr. 1955).