Alaleona, Domenico

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Alaleona, Domenico

Alaleona, Domenico, Italian musicologist and composer; b. Montegiorgio, Nov. 16, 1881; d. there, Dec. 28, 1928. He studied organ and clarinet in Montegiorgio, and then was a student of Sgambati (piano), Renzi (organ), and De Sanctis (theory) at the Liceo di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He was active as a choral conductor in Leghorn and Rome before becoming a prof. at the Liceo di Santa Cecilia in 1916. Alaleona made an important contribution to the study of the Italian oratorio in his Studi sulla storia dell’oratorio musicale in Italia (Turin, 1908). He also wrote the interesting article “L’armonia modernissima” in the Rivista Musicale Italiana, XVIII (1911). As a theorist, he proposed splitting the octave into unorthodox equal divisions and combining the 12 notes of the chromatic scale into single chords. Among his compositions were the opera Mirra (1912; Rome, March 31, 1920), the Sinfonia italiana, a Requiem, and songs.

Bibliography

G. Cardi, D. A.: Musicista e musicologo (Ascoli Piceno, 1957).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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