Nino Pirrotta
Nino Pirrotta (13 June 1908 in
Early life and education
Born Antonino Pirrotta in Palermo, Pirotta was the son of Vincenzo Pirotta and Adele Pirrotta (née Restivo).[2] His father owned a tinplate lithography factory.[2] The family moved in intellectual circles in Palermo, and his father's cousin was the dramatist and novelist Luigi Pirandello.[2] His sister Giulia married the composer Ottavio Ziino.[2]
In his youth, Pirrotta studied the piano privately with Luigi Amadio who was a professor of the
Pirotta was concurrently a student at both the Florence Conservatory and the University of Florence.[2] He graduated from the Florence Conservatory in 1929 with degrees in organ performance and organ composition.[2] In 1930 he earned a degree in literature from the University of Florence with an emphasis in art history; writing a thesis on majolica painting of the Renaissance.[2]
Career
After graduating in 1930, Pirrotta served a year in obligatory military service. Upon completing this obligation, he returned to Palermo in 1931 where he simultaneously took a position as music critic at the newspaper L'Ora and began a career as a concert pianist.[2] He also worked as an assistant in the library of the Palermo Conservatory until 1938 when he was appointed professor of music history and librarian at that institution.[2] In 1939 he married Lea Paternostro (1911-1996) with whom he had four children.[2] He achieved prestige for his work restoring the Palermo Conservatory's library after it was destroyed by bombing during World War II.[2]
Pirotta established himself as an important academic with his first book, Il Sacchetti e la Tecnica Musicale (1935, with Ettore Li Gotti) which focused on the music and poetry of the Trecento. He went on to publish several more works on that topic and became one of the most important scholars on the Italian Ars Nova, Florentine Camerata, and early opera. In 1970 his book Li Dui Orfei (later published in English in 1982 as Music and Theater from Poliziano to Monteverdi), which traced the pre-history of opera, was awarded the Kinkeldey Award by the American Musicological Society.[3]
In 1948 Pirrotta left his position as librarian and professor at the Palermo Conservatory to become the
Selected bibliography
- Pirrotta, Nino (1955). "Marchettus de Padua and the Italian Ars Nova". JSTOR 20531887.
- Pirrotta, Nino (1994). "On Landini and San Lorenzo". JSTOR 20532378.