Mario Pilati

Savasta at the Naples Conservatory before teaching at the Liceo Musicale in Cagliari (1924–6) and at the Milan Conservatory (1926–30). He returned to Naples, where he held the professorship of counterpoint at the conservatory there (1930–33) and then, that of composition in Palermo, before returning to Naples Conservatory at the end of his life. He was active as a critic for various newspapers and journals, including Rassegna Musicale, and published guides to two operas by Pizzetti, Orséolo and Fra Gherardo. Pilati shared with many other early 20th-century Italian composers an interest in reviving instrumental music of the past, both Italian and European (his Suite for piano and strings and Piano Quintet are clearly neo-classical and reminiscent of Ravel, while later works assume the characteristics of sonatas of the Romantic era). The influence of Pizzetti is significant, especially in his assimilation of linguistic and formal models (Il battesimo di Cristo for soloists, chorus and orchestra) and in a structural rigour, tempered in Pilati's case by a rich vein of folksong inspiration which finds full expression in his last works.