(Cuneo 11-VII-1892 - Nervi 25-III-1965)
He studied cello and composition in Turin, graduating in 1911. He then substituted for a few years at the Teatro Regio and, from 1918, taught at the Municipal School of Choral Singing in Turin. Later, he moved on to the chair of composition at that Conservatory. From 1941, he taught at the Milan Conservatory and was director from 1951 to '62.
Partita for orchestra (1926)
The Partita form had surprising success in Italian music of the first decades of the century. In the search, familiar to all musicians of recent generations, for a connection with the Italian musical tradition, this form must have seemed the most suitable for encompassing a profoundly Italian way of expression and, simultaneously, aware of the most recent developments in music. In fact, in the general tendency towards classicism, this instrumental form lent itself particularly well to the operation of "recovery" of an instrumental tradition, which had been interrupted for almost two centuries by the imposition of opera. The series of Partiti was inaugurated by Casella in 1925, then came this one by Ghedini, and in 1932, those by Petrassi and Dallapiccola.
The Partita is a typical composition of Ghedini's "baroque" and constructivist period, interwoven with vigorous rhythms, a sanguine and skillful counterpoint, very elaborate also in the orchestral treatment, not alien to harsh harmonic clashes but inspired by precise apparent linearity of discourse. It is written for standard symphony orchestra and includes the following themes: "Entrata" ('Allegro gagliardo'), "Corrente" ('Serene, sweet and spring-like'), "Siciliana" ('Lento, pensive and mesto'), "Bourrée I and II," "Giga," where it would not seem wrong to see a particular influence hindemithiano (the time signature is 'Veiled and grey').
