Italian city, capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. In the Middle Ages it was governed by a count-bishop and the Patriarch of Aquileia; between 1382 and 1918 it was part of the Habsburg empire and in 1954, after years of contention with Yugoslavia, it was annexed to Italy.
The earliest documentation relating to the organ in the cathedral of S Giusto dates from 1473, and two breviaries from 1348 and 1509 (in I-TSci 1–22) contain the liturgical drama Visitatio sepulchri in the version of the Aquileian rite, which the Council of Udine eliminated in 1596.
The first documented reference to the maestro di civica cappella of S Giusto was in 1538, and between 1560 and 1642 the post was held by Bartolomeo Rovere, Giulio Zacchino, Silao Casentini, Gabriello Puliti and Martino Naimon. When the newly built Palazzo Comunale was opened in 1707 the maestro was also given responsibility for conducting opera performances there, an arrangement that lasted until 1860. During the early 18th century, under Giambattista Arcari and Giacomo Notte, the cappella was endowed with a group of four violinists and four singers. At the beginning of the 19th century the opera composers Giuseppe Farinelli and Luigi Ricci alternated as directors of the institution. The subsequent spread of the Cecilian movement, timidly accepted by Giuseppe Rota, led to the suppression of the orchestra under Carlo Painich in 1922. After World War II Giuseppe Radole and, subsequently, Marco Sofianopulo brought an innovatory impetus to the institution.
After the mystery plays Il mistero di San Giusto (1534) and La passione di nostro Signore il giovedì santo (1536), the first record of staged musical drama is La fidutia in Dio by Pietro Rossetti, performed in 1683 to celebrate the defeat of the Turks. However, it was only in the 18th century that operatic activity began to develop in Trieste, with the intermezzos La contadina by Hasse (1721) and Serpilla e Bacocco by Orlandini (1730). The latter was staged in the same year that a commercial fair was instituted in the city. In 1752 the Palazzo Comunale was transformed into the Teatro di S Pietro whose repertory alternated works by Fischietti, Gazzaniga, Piccinni, Paisiello and Mozart with those by resident composers such as Notte, Domenico Della Maria and Farinelli. In 1801 the Teatro Nouvo was inaugurated with two new operas: Mayr's Ginevra di Scozia, and Salieri's Annibale in Capua. The theatre became the Teatro Grande in 1821 and the Teatro Comunale in 1861. In the early 19th century, during the three periods of French occupation, there was a predilection for the farse of Generali, Pavesi and Mayr; later in the century, alongside pieces by local composers (Ricci, Strmić, Manna), the directors showed a preference for established successes, though two new works were commissioned from Verdi: Il corsaro (1848) and Stiffelio (1850). Around 1876 Trieste audiences developed a passion for Wagner, and in 1883 Angelo Neumann's company, under Anton Seidl, performed the entire Ring at the new Politeama Rossetti, inaugurated in 1878. Antonio Smareglia spent the latter years of his life in Trieste, collaborating with the librettist Silvio Benco, and his Nozze istriane (1895) received its première in the city. The Teatro Comunale was renamed the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi in 1901.
Operetta, now the subject of an important festival, was first seen at the Teatro Armonia in 1866, with music by Offenbach and Suppé. Lehár was frequently in contact with the city, writing marches and songs (Sangue triestin, Miramare) and in 1907 staging Die lustige Witwe at the Teatro Filodrammatico.
The opening of the free port in 1719 and the consequent immigration of merchants from central Europe and the Mediterranean (Slavs, Germans, Jews and Greeks) contributed to the formation of a cosmopolitan population, showing a middle European taste in the arts. As in other cities in the Habsburg empire, Hausmusik and musical evenings became popular during the early 19th century, initiating a tradition of chamber music. In 1763 concerts were inaugurated at the Casino dei Nobili, transferring to the Gabinetto di Minerva in 1810 and then the Teatro Mauroner, where Giuseppe Scaramelli appeared in a quartet in 1828. Scaramelli, an admirer of Haydn, was Konzertmeister at the Teatro Grande and wrote a Saggio sopra i doveri di un primo violino direttore d'orchestra (1811) in which he deplored the practice of conducting in tandem with the harpsichordist and advocated that the first violin alone carry out the conductor's role. Danced pantomimes and pieces for orchestra and smaller groups of instruments were habitually inserted between the acts of plays, and until the early 20th century international stars visited the city: Paganini in 1816 and 1824, Liszt in 1839 and Mahler in 1905 and 1907 (the printed copy of Mahler's Fifth Symphony housed in the Trieste Conservatory contains modifications in the composer's hand, made for the concert of 1905).
In 1829 the musical activities of the Società Filarmonico-drammatica were inaugurated and after the revolutionary uprising of 1848 the Schillerverein (1850–1918) was formed to promote German culture. The Hungarian violinist Julius Heller was appointed conductor in 1860 and introduced all Beethoven's symphonies into the orchestra's repertory. He then formed a quartet, which served as a model for Augusto Jancovich's Quartetto Triestino (1903) and the Quartetto Barison (1919), but only the Trio di Trieste (1933) achieved an international reputation. The Società dei Concerti, founded in 1932, today provides a healthy concert life, while in the field of contemporary music there is the Premio Città di Trieste (1949) and the festival organized by the Chromas association (1986) under the composer Giampaolo Coral.
The first academy of music in Trieste was the Liceo, directed by Giuseppe Cervellini from 1822 to 1825; it was followed by the municipal school founded by the pianist Eduard Jaell (1838–43) and the school of choral singing (1843, from 1864 the Civica Scuola) run by Francesco Sinico. Following on from the singing schools founded by Luigi Ricci and Francesco Zingerle were the Liceo Musicale, opened under Arturo Vram in 1884, the Conservatorio Verdi and the Liceo Tartini (1904), amalgamated into a single institution, the Ateneo Musicale Triestino, in 1932; this in turn became the Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Tartini in 1953.
In 1893 Giangiacomo Manzutto founded the Rivista musicale illustrata and Busoni, critic on the daily L'indipendente from 1884 to 1885, had his Entwurf einer neuen Aesthetik der Tonkunst published by Carlo Schmidl, himself a musicologist and the founder of a valuable collection of music and documents now held in the Museo Teatrale which is named after him (I-TSmt).
The story of music among the minority religions in Trieste (Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Protestant) is still to be written. There is more information on the Serbian Orthodox church, which preserves music by Galuppi, Berezovsky, Bortnyansky and Turchaninov, brought from St Petersburg. Francesco Sinico was the first to compose for this church, following the Old Slavonic liturgy. However, the roots of organized Slav culture lie in the Slavjanski Zbor (Slavic Society) which brought together Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Following the example of the Czechs, after 1848 native Slovenes formed a Slavjanka Narodna Čitalnica (Slovenian Reading Room), directed by the Bohemian Jan Lego in the manner of the besedy of Prague and Zagreb. In 1873 the Čitalnica formed a permanent choir under the direction of Anton Hajdrič and Hrabroslav Volarič began to publish choral pieces and folksongs for piano (Narodne pesme, 1887; Slovenske pesmi, 1891, 1894), which were performed by choirs in surrounding villages and in those parts of city which had always been inhabited by Slovenes. In 1890 groups of players of the tanburice (a plucked instrument) were formed; in 1907 the Slovensko Gledališče (Slovenian Theatre) was opened in the Narodni Dom, where works by Czech and Croat composers were performed, and in 1909 the Glasbena Matica (Slovenian Music School) was founded. With the exception of the tanburice groups, these institutions were revived after the fall of fascism, which between 1922 and 1945 had pursued a brutal policy of aggression towards the region's Slav population.
DEUMM (P. Derossi)
GroveO (S. Durante)
F. Danziger: Memorie del Teatro Comunale di Trieste dal 1801 al 1876 raccolte da un vecchio teatrofilo (Trieste, 1877)
A. Hortis: ‘Delle rappresentazioni sceniche in Trieste prima del Teatro di S Pietro’, Archeografo triestino, new ser., viii (1881–2), 144–63
G.C. Bottura: Storia aneddotica documentata del Teatro comunale di Trieste (Trieste, 1885)
G. Caprin: Il Teatro nuovo (Trieste, 1901, 2/1970)
M. Nordio: Il Politeama Rossetti: Storia di cinquant'anni, 1878–1928 (Trieste, 1928)
M. Nordio: Il XXV anniversario della fondazione del Conservatorio di musica Giuseppe Tartini (Trieste, 1929)
C.L. Curiel: Il Teatro S Pietro in Trieste (Milan, 1937)
G. Hermet: ‘La vita musicale a Trieste (1801–1944)’, Archeografo triestino, 4th ser., xii–xiii (1947), 125–239
G. Radole: ‘Musicisti a Trieste sul finire del Cinquecento e nei primi del Seicento’, Archeografo triestino, 4th ser., xxii (1959), 133–61
V. Levi, G. Botteri and I. Bremini: Il Comunale di Trieste (Udine, 1961)
V. Levi: La vita musicale a Trieste (Milan, 1968)
A. Rojc: Cultura musicale degli sloveni a Trieste: dal 1848 all'avvento del fascismo (Trieste, 1978)
G. Gori and S. Cimarosti: Cinquant'anni della Società dei Concerti di Trieste (Trieste, 1986)
G. Radole: Le scuole musicali a Trieste e il Conservatorio ‘G. Tartini’ (Trieste, 1988)
G. Radole: Ricerche sulla vita musicale a Trieste, 1750–1950 (Trieste, 1988)
D. Petrović: ‘Muzika u srpskoj pravoslavnoj crkvi u Trstu’ [Music in the Serbian Orthodox Church in Trieste], MZ, xxv (1989), 95–105
G. Radole: La civica cappella di San Giusto: 450 anni di musica a Trieste (Trieste, 1989)
G. Radole: Trieste la musica e i musicisti (1945–1989) (Trieste, 1992)
Itinerari del classicismo musicale: Trieste e la Mitteleuropa: Trieste 1991
IVANO CAVALLINI