Vittorio Rieti

Vittorio Rieti (b. Alexandria, Egypt, 28 Jan 1898; d. New York, 19 Feb 1994) was an American composer of Italian descent. He studied music with Giuseppe Frugatta in Milan (1912–1917) as well as economics at the University of Milan, where he obtained a doctorate in 1917. 

 

After brief war service in the Italian army, he settled in Rome with his family and took up his composition studies again with Casella; he also received some tutoring in orchestration from Ottorino Respighi. In 1921 he met Alban Berg, Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel in Vienna. Arnold Schoenberg also showed great interest in his works, wishing to perform them in the concerts of the Society for Private Musical Performances. 

 

In the early 1920s he was associated with Renzo Massarani and Mario Labroca in a group that called itself I Tre, in imitation of Les Six. His first international success came at the ISCM Festival in Prague in 1924 with his Concerto for wind and orchestra, conducted by Casella, who continued to befriend his younger colleague. From 1925 to 1940 Rieti divided his time between Rome and Paris, where he formed close ties with Igor Stravinsky, Sergey Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith, Manuel de Falla, Kurt Weill and Les Six. He wrote ballet music for Sergey Pavlovich Diaghilev (Barabau being particularly successful) and much incidental music for the Parisian theater of Louis Jouvet. He was also one of the founder-directors of the Paris group La Sérénade, dedicated to modern chamber music (1931–1938). 

 

In 1940 he moved to the USA (he became a citizen in 1944). There his ballet music was choreographed by Balanchine, his orchestral music conducted by, among others, Arturo Toscanini and Dimitri Mitropoulos. He continued to be productive until just before his death. As a teacher of composition, he was active at the Peabody Conservatory (1948–1949), the Chicago Musical College (1950–1953), Queens College (1955–1960) and the New York College of Music (1961–1964).

 

Rieti's musical style has been fairly consistent throughout his long career. After early experiments with atonality, he evolved an idiom akin to neo-classicism, which remained his characteristic trait.