Azio Corghi

Azio Corghi (b Ciriè, nr Turin, 9 March 1937). Italian composer. After starting out as a painter, he took diplomas at the Turin Conservatory in the piano (1961), composition (1965, studying with Bettinelli), choral music (1966) and conducting (1967), as well as polyphonic vocal composition (1969) at the Milan Conservatory.

He came to prominence by winning the RAI-Ricordi competition (1967), the Gaudeamus prize (1969) and the Jeunesses Musicales prize (1972). Among his commissions are works for IRCAM (1982) and La Scala (1990). He taught composition at the conservatories in Turin (1967–71), Milan (1971–6) and Parma (1976–8), returning to a permanent appointment in Milan in 1978; in 1995 he began to teach at the Accademia di S Cecilia in Rome.

Corghi’s music retains two fundamental elements from an early interest in Berg and Debussy: contrapuntal textures and the manipulation of timbre. Rigorously organized, his pieces have experimented with avant-garde methods, including extended instrumental techniques and electro-acoustic elements, for example in Intavolature, ‘… in fieri’, Jocs floreal and Actus I. The voice took on greater importance in the 1970s (e.g. Symbola) as did folk music and poetry (e.g. Ninnios, Viòire). After Symbola (which involves a mime artist), the music-theatre piece Tactus and the ballet Actus III, he moved on to larger-scale compositions for the theatre, with Gargantua, Blimunda and Divara. Of great dramatic complexity, these works re-examine historical forms and styles through a modern perspective and with a keen critical sensibility.