Penombra arcana sulla collina serena: Pizzetti e le musiche di scena per il teatro greco di Siracusa

During the 1930s, Ildebrando Pizzetti was invited to compose stage music for many plays staged at the Greek Theatre of Syracuse under the aegis of the Committee for Classical Performances, within the framework of an ideologically-oriented recovery of classical culture. The collaboration, which began in 1930 with the music for Agamemnone by Aeschylus, was renewed in 1933 and 1936 with the music for Trachinie and Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles. Through the examination of a large body of unpublished documentary sources kept in the historical archives of the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico, the essay retraces the genesis and development of the stage music created by Pizzetti for these tragedies, which were later re-elaborated by the author in independent works, for concert performances.