La (ri)nascita dei Giusti nell’«opera della felicità»: intorno alla genesi del Settimo Concerto di Petrassi

Abstract

The essay reconstructs the genesis of Goffredo Petrassi’s Settimo Concerto (1964) from the study of the manuscripts and sketches kept in the Fondo Petrassi (FP) at the Campus Internazionale di Musica di Latina: the autograph manuscript of the Prologo e cinque Invenzioni (1962) and the notes for the Prologo; the draft of the theatrical score from Camus’ Les Justes. Taking into account the author’s testimony about the Settimo Concerto and its abandoned antecedent (the Prologo e cinque Invenzioni), as well as the special friendship between Petrassi and Massimo Mila, it has been possible to highlight the rescue of at least part of the material preserved in the ’62 manuscript within the sketch of I giusti (1962) and subsequently the score of Musica di ottoni (1963), before the final landing within the penultimate concerto of Petrassi’s successful series. The essay is completed by three appendices, each containing the relevant correspondence preserved in Petrassi’s Epistolario and all the press reviews relating to the first performances of the Settimo Concerto in the two-year period 1965-66.