Pietro Spada is an Italian pianist and musicologist (born Rome July 29, 1935). He is particularly noted for his technically masterful and vivid interpretations of works by lesser-known composers and his recordings of the piano music of John Field are highly regarded.

Biography

Pietro Spada is the second of three sons of Maria Teresa Fodale and Massimo Spada. Although not born into a musical dynasty___his parents both had law degrees __ the household was never devoid of music, frequented by many well-known musicians of the time including the violinist Gioconda de Vito

Gioconda de Vito

Gioconda de Vito was an Italian-British classical violinist. -Life:...

 and the tenors Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years....

 and Tito Schipa

Tito Schipa

Tito Schipa was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history...

. His great-grandfather

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

, Jacopo Ferretti

Jacopo Ferretti

Jacopo Ferretti was an Italian writer, poet and opera librettist.He is most famous for having supplied the libretti for two operas by Rossiniand for five operas by Donizetti....

, wrote the libretto for Rossini’s la Cenerentola

La Cenerentola

La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...

 and collaborated as librettist with other composers such as his close friend Donizetti, Pacini and Mercadante.

Spada began his study of the piano at the age of 12 under Vito Carnevali. A short time later he entered the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome to study under Tito Aprea completing his diploma in piano with highest honours in 1956. Subsequently he received coaching but no formal lessons from the Italian pianist and conductor Carlo Zecchi

Carlo Zecchi

Carlo Zecchi was an Italian pianist, music teacher and conductor.Zecchi was born in Rome. He led pianistic courses in Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, and in Salzburg. Highly acclaimed performer of Domenico Scarlatti, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Claude Debussy works, and of Romantic...

 who became one of his closest friends. Spada underwent composition courses with Vincenzo di Donato, Carlo Pinelli and Andrea Mascagni completing his studies at the Milan Conservatory

Milan Conservatory

The Milan Conservatory is a college of music which was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year with premises in the cloisters of the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Passione. There were initially 18 boarders,...

 with Giorgio Federico Ghedini

Giorgio Federico Ghedini

Giorgio Federico Ghedini was an Italian composer.-Life:Ghedini was born in Cuneo in 1892. He studied organ, piano and composition in Turin, then graduated in composition in Bologna under Marco Enrico Bossi in 1911...

.

Career

He has performed widely in many countries including Japan, Germany, North and South America, Russia, England and toured with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli

John Barbirolli

Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...

. Spada performed under various eminent conductors including Charles Bruch, Dean Dixon

Dean Dixon

Charles Dean Dixon was an American conductor.Dixon was born in New York City, where he later studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and Columbia University. When early pursuits of conducting engagements were stifled because of racial bias , he formed his own orchestra and...

, Antal Dorati

Antal Doráti

Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...

, Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

, Anatole Fistoulari, Jascha Horenstein

Jascha Horenstein

Jascha Horenstein was an American conductor.Horenstein was born in Kiev, Russian Empire , into a well-to-do Jewish family; his mother came from an Austrian rabbinical family and his father was Russian....

, Peter Maag, John Pritchard, Thomas Sanderling, Ferruccio Scaglia, Lovro Von Matacic

Lovro von Matacic

Lovro von Matačić was a Croatian conductor and composer.-Biography:Lovro von Matačić was born in Sušak to a family that was granted a noble title in the early 17th century. Growing up, he was always surrounded by music and art: his father had a career as an opera singer, and his mother as an actress...

 and many others.

Spada was appointed Guest Professor of piano at Florida State University

Florida State University

The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...

 in August 1966. The following year he joined the piano faculty of the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and later that of Indiana University in Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

, Indiana. At every university he both taught and performed before deciding to return to Italy in 1970. Later on he taught at the Turin Conservatory, the Rome Conservatory and the historical Naples Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella. There he spent his longest period as a piano professor, intensely researching in one of the most important autograph manuscript collections of the world before deciding to leave teaching.

Research

During his residence in the United States he was given a grant to do research on Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi was a celebrated composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. Born in Italy, he spent most of his life in England. He is best known for his piano sonatas, and his collection of piano studies, Gradus ad Parnassum...

producing a definitive edition of the Clementi Symphonies. Continuing in his research, he published and recorded many unedited keyboard compositions by Paisiello, Donizetti, Field and others. Spada, together with Massimo Boccaccini, founded Boccacini & Spada Editori through which he has issued a huge volume of hitherto unpublished compositions of great Classic composers.

Prominent soloists and conductors who have presented many of Spada’s editions include Abbado, Chailly, Ferro, Gavazzeni, Gazzelloni, Muti, Pavarotti, Rampal and Schippers.

Spada recorded for the first time in 1960 and continues to do so today having produced a vast amount of repertoire on CD.

Family

Spada married in 1967 and has a son, Marcantonio, born in Rome in 1970.
He currently lives and works in Rome Italy.

External links

• [ allmusic.com] - Pietro Spada
• Boccaccini & Spada Music Editions