(It. Torino).
North Italian city, capital of Piedmont.
GIORGIO PESTELLI
During the Middle Ages the cultural importance of Turin was considerably less than that of the court of the marquises of Monferrato, a flourishing centre of troubadour art, or episcopal centres such as Ivrea or Vercelli. It has been proved that the church of S Salvatore (later the site of Turin Cathedral) had a singing school attached to it, but information about the activities of the cathedral cappella (which were probably commensurate with the modest economic development of the city) is available only from the mid-15th century.
The true musical history of Turin began about 1450, stimulated by Bishop Ludovico di Romagnano, who founded the Collegium Puerorum Innocentium and reorganized the cathedral cappella, and by the house of Savoy (i), particularly Duke Ludovico (Louis) and his wife Anne of Cyprus, both of whom cultivated a brilliant court and were patrons of music. The duke and his wife were in close contact with Du Fay, who directed the cappella in 1434 and maintained contact with the court from 1437 to 1439, and from 1450 to at least 1456. In 1450 Du Fay, then ‘cantor illustrissimi domini ducis Burgundiae’, lodged in Turin at the Osteria del Cappello. It is difficult to assess his direct influence on the city's subsequent musical life since the court often moved between Chambéry, Geneva, Turin and other minor centres, even crossing the Alps in winter with the cappella musicians in its train. (Antoine Brumel was appointed singer in the cappella by a letter from Turin, 20 June 1490, and was active in both Geneva and Chambéry, the official seat of the Ste Chapelle.) This situation continued until 1563 when the duke's capital was fixed at Turin by Emanuele Filiberto, who acceded when the duchy had been destroyed by the Franco-Habsburg war. He worked brilliantly as a diplomat and politician to consolidate its position, revived commercial activity and was able, between 1550 and 1555, to re-create the musical establishment of the court by engaging singers and instrumentalists.
Turin took on the aspect of a capital even more under the enterprising Duke Carlo Emanuele I, a friend of writers (Tasso, Chiabrera and G.B. Marino were received at court) and a man of letters himself. In 1585, on the occasion of the duke's marriage to Catalina Micaela, Infanta of Spain, pastorals were performed in honour of the Infanta; it is probable that a performance of G.B. Guarini's Il pastor fido was planned, though this seems not to have taken place. During the early 17th century companies of actors of the commedia dell'arte stayed in Turin several times on their way to France (e.g. the Accesi between 1602 and 1609 and G.B. Andreini's Fedeli in 1620). In this period Ludovico d'Agliè became known through his theatrical enterprises: in close collaboration with the duke, he organized festivities, jousts and spectacles of which the court was justly proud; he also organized various theatrical spectacles, using his own librettos, with music and ballets, such as Il combattimento dei cavalieri di Diana e di Venere all'isola Polidora (1602) with madrigals by T. Stigliani, Festa di Mirafiori (1608), Le trasformazioni di Millefonti (1609) and I trionfi del Petrarca (1618). The encounter between d'Agliè and Sigismondo d'India, maestro di musica di camera (1611–23), was particularly important for the future of opera in Turin. To d'Agliè's libretto d'India composed the music for the pastoral La Zalizura (in stile recitativo) and a caccia (1602) performed in the villa of Cardinal Maurizio, brother of the duke. Marie Christine of France (sister of Louis XIII), who married Vittorio Amedeo I in 1619, increased the French orientation of the Turin court; she kept four musiciens de cabinet recruited in Paris for her own entertainment, and Filippo d'Agliè, nephew and successor of Ludovico, produced précieux ballets de cour for her during the years 1624–7. Ballets, entertainments and comédies à machines, increasingly following the pattern set by Versailles, continued under Carlo Emanuele II (1648); about the middle of the century the cappella was divided into musici di camera and musici armonici and, to judge by their remuneration, the latter were held in high repute. In 1672 the duke, in imitation of the French fashion, gathered the violinists in his service into a banda, which numbered 24 instrumentalists in 1677. During these years notable maestri di cappella included G.B. Trabattone (1633), G. Sebenico (1683–90), probably a pupil of Legrenzi, and A.D. Cignani (1699–1707); among the famous figures who came into contact with the court was Alessandro Stradella.
The musical history of Turin reached its peak in the 18th century under Vittorio Amedeo II, Vittorio Amedeo III and Carlo Emanuele III. During the first years of the century G.B. Somis, one of the violinists of the banda and a descendant of a family of violinists who had been in the service of the court since the mid-17th century, was noted for the consummate artistry of his playing; the duke sent him to Rome to study with Corelli during the years 1703–6 and then kept him as his private soloist, appointing him leader and allowing him ample time for his activities as a composer and teacher. During this period the maestro di cappella was S.A. Fiorè, who was particularly active as a composer of theatre music, and who had been sent to Rome with Somis. Somis's pupils included J.M. Leclair, who had gone to Turin as a dancer, Felice Giardini, who later went to Paris and then to London, and Pugnani. Pugnani's brilliant career as a soloist began in 1754 at the Concert Spirituel in Paris; after a brief stay in Rome he returned to Turin in 1770 as first violin in the cappella orchestra. Among his pupils was G.B. Viotti, who after a brief period at the Turin court toured abroad with Pugnani (1780) and later settled in Paris and London, the representative of the famed Piedmontese school of violin playing. This tradition of excellence made Turin a lively musical centre in the 18th century – Quantz visited it in 1726, Charles de Brosses in 1740 and Georg Benda, Burney, and Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart during the second half of the century. The successful development of instrumental music was paralleled in opera; the Teatro Carignano was inaugurated in 1715, and operas and plays were given there alternately. The Teatro Regio (1738; see fig.2) was designed by A. di Castellamonte and B. Alfieri, who received advice for the project from Galli-Bibiena. Its repertory from 1740 included works by Francesco Feo, Leonardo Leo, Jommelli, J.A. Hasse, Tommaso Traetta, Galuppi, Niccolò Piccinni, J.C. Bach (his first opera Artaserse, 1761), Pugnani, De Maio, Sacchini, Cimarosa and others. From 1748 almost without interruption until 1792 B. and F. Galliari designed the scenery. Much music was also produced for the cathedral, particularly by the maestri di cappella and other officials such as Giovanni Antonio Giai (from 1732), his son Francesco Saverio Giai (active until 1792) and Quirino Gasparini (1760–78).
In 1798 Carlo Emanuele IV, driven out by the French Revolutionary troops, was compelled to disband the musical cappella which, even after the Restoration, declined rapidly. The last notable music director was G.B. Polledro, who returned to Turin in 1824 after a period as Konzertmeister at Dresden and who had known Beethoven. Under his direction, and that of his successor G. Ghebart, the taste for chamber music and for the Viennese Classical repertory was kept alive at a time when the public was interested only in opera. The struggle for the unification of Italy, of which Turin was the political and military centre, diverted the interest of the ruling class from all aspects of music until the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Secular organizations of musical culture had been active for some time when the cappella was officially disbanded on 5 June 1870. The oldest of these was the Accademia Filarmonica, founded in 1814 with the double aim of establishing a school of singing and encouraging concerts and recitals for ‘recreative purposes’. Later came the Società del Quartetto (1862) and the Società Corale (1875) which was directed by the violinist S. Tempia. The Concerti Popolari (1872–86), held in the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele, were particularly successful; founded by G. Bercanovich, Carlo Pedrotti and G. Depanis, they were modelled on Pasdeloup's Parisian Concerts Populaires and played an important role in bringing public taste up to date and encouraging interest in instrumental music. That this soon became popular is shown by the early activities of Toscanini, who made his début in Italy at the Teatro Carignano in 1886, and by the extraordinary number of private schools of music which were founded; among their students was Alfredo Casella. After some decades of uneventful administration, the Teatro Regio, especially under the direction of the impresario Depanis, enjoyed a period of vigorous revival: in 1876 Wagner's Lohengrin, which had failed at La Scala three years previously, was a great success there, and Turin became a Wagnerian centre; and in 1895 Toscanini conducted the local première of Götterdämmerung. The last years of the century included the first performances of Catalani's Elda (1880) and Puccini's Le villi (1884 revision), Manon Lescaut (1893) and La bohème (1896); these contributed to the creation in Turin of the decadent cultural climate known as crepuscolarismo, with Calandra, Faldella, Giacosa and Gozzano as its most noteworthy literary exponents. The première of Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini (1914) and the Italian premières of Strauss's Salome (1906, conducted by the composer) and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel were also given at the Teatro Regio.
In 1911, as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the unification of Italy, Debussy conducted a concert of his music in Turin. The institution of greatest cultural importance was the Teatro di Torino (1925–31), an opera house which took over the Teatro Scribe. Under the artistic direction of G.M. Gatti, and with the collaboration of Vittorio Gui and Casella, it brought back into the repertory neglected operas such as Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri and Gluck's Alceste, and put on the first Italian performances of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, Malipiero's Sette canzoni, Ravel's L'heure espagnole and Stravinsky's The Wedding. In 1936 the Teatro Regio was completely destroyed by fire and the war badly damaged the Teatro di Torino. This resulted in increased performances of symphonic and chamber music, a situation encouraged by the presence in Turin, from 1931, of a radio orchestra which also gave public concerts. Since the war the permanent conductors of the Orchestra di Torino della Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) have been Alberto Erede, Mario Rossi and Piero Bellugi, and from 1952 it has given regular series of public concerts in the RAI Auditorium built on the site of the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele. In addition to these concerts a lively interest has developed in chamber music, prompted by such societies as the Pro Cultura Femminile, the Amici della Musica, the Musica da Camera and the Unione Musicale; operas have been given in other halls (e.g. the Teatro Nuovo) not really suited to the purpose. After many difficulties the Teatro Regio was finally rebuilt to plans by C. Mollino. It was inaugurated on 10 April 1973 with Verdi's I vespri siciliani rehearsed by Gui, conducted by Fulvio Vernizzi, produced by Maria Callas (her first production) in collaboration with Giuseppe di Stefano and with choreography by Serge Lifar. In the 1980s the Teatro Regio passed through a financial crisis before its fortunes revived under the management of Elda Tessore and the artistic direction of Carlo Majer. A large new concert hall, seating 1900, was built to a design by Renzo Piano inside the disused Lingotto car factory; it was inaugurated on 6 May 1994 with a concert by the Berlin PO conducted by Abbado.
The first proposal for a conservatory of music in Turin was made in the Napoleonic era by C. Botta, a doctor, botanist, historian and secretary for education in the provisional government, whose suggestion was approved by the central government in Paris but was constantly postponed and finally abandoned. In 1872 a Scuola Gratuita di Canto attached to the Accademia Filarmonica was officially opened, and for many years this was the only body competent to give adequate music education. The Liceo Musicale was founded on 11 June 1866; in 1887 it became the Istituto Musicale (directed by Giovanni Bolzoni) and in 1936 was enlarged to become the Conservatorio Statale di Musica Giuseppe Verdi. Among Bolzoni's successors were Franco Alfano, Lodovico Rocca and Sandro Fuga; the staff has included Giorgio Federico Ghedini, Luigi Perrachio and Andrea Della Corte. In 1963 the Istituto di Storia della Musica, directed by Massimo Mila, was founded as part of the faculty of letters and philosophy of Turin University.
Between 1926 and 1933 the Turin University library, already rich in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, was able to reunite the Durazzo bequest, now known as the Foà-Giordano bequest, which contains among other treasures the Intavolatura d'organo tedesca (the richest known manuscript source of organ music) and a great number of operas and instrumental and church music by Vivaldi. The music section of the municipal library, named after Della Corte, has been enriched by his valuable private collection. Turin has made an important contribution to historical and musical studies as the seat of Rivista musicale italiana (1893–1955), the organ of the nascent interest in musicological research, and La rassegna musicale (1928–62), which was founded (in 1920 as Il pianoforte) and directed by G.M. Gatti and had a seminal role in the renewal of Italian musical culture.
P. Breggi: Serie degli spettacoli rappresentati al Teatro regio di Torino dal 1688 al 1872 (Turin, 1872)
G. Roberti: La cappella regia di Torino, 1515–1870 (Turin, 1880)
G. Roberti: ‘La musica negli antichi eserciti sabaudi’, RMI, iii (1896), 700–13
A. Solerti: ‘Feste musicali alla corte di Savoia nella prima metà del secolo XVII’, RMI, xi (1904), 675–724
S. Cordero di Pamparato: ‘Le relazioni del musico Dassouci colla corte di Torino’, RMI, xxi (1914), 443–50
G. Depanis: I concerti popolari ed il Teatro regio di Torino: quindici anni di vita musicale (Turin, 1914–15)
L. Torri: ‘Il primo melodramma a Torino’, RMI, xxvi (1919), 1–35
G. Borghezio: ‘La fondazione del Collegio nuovo “Puerorum Innocentium” del duomo di Torino’, NA, i (1924), 200–66
A. Cimbro: ‘La musica al teatro di Torino’, RMI, xxxiii (1926), 386–407
C. De Rossi: Il Teatro regio di Torino, 1891–1924 (Turin, 1925)
S. Cordero di Pamparato: ‘Le origini della cappella musicale dei principi di Savoia’, Santa Cecilia, xxix (1927), 41; xxx (1928), 10
A. Cimbro and A. Gentili: Catalogo delle opere manoscritte della Biblioteca nazionale di Torino (Parma, 1928)
S. Cordero di Pamparato: ‘Alcuni appunti sul teatro melodrammatico francese in Torino nei secoli XVII, XVIII, e XIX’, RMI, xxxvii (1930), 562–71; xxxviii (1931), 21–36
S. Cordero di Pamparato: Un teatro scomparso (Turin, 1930)
S. Cordero di Pamparato: ‘I musici alla corte di Carlo Emanuele I di Savoia’, Biblioteca della Società storica subalpina, cxxi (1930), 31–142
G. Papini: Il Teatro Carignano dal 1608 a giorni nostri (Turin, 1935)
R. Aragno: ‘Il Teatro Carignano di Torino’, Rivista italiana del dramma, i (1941)
S. Cordero di Pamparato: ‘Un duca di Savoia impresario teatrale’, RMI, xlv (1941), 108–32, 237–63
G. Tani: ‘Le comte d'Aglié et le ballet de cour en Italie’, Les fêtes de la Renaissance I: Royaumont 1955, 221
L. Tamburini: I teatri di Torino: storia e cronache (Turin, 1966)
M.-T. Bouquet: ‘La cappella musicale dei duchi di Savoia dal 1450 al 1500’, RIM, iii (1968), 233–85
M.-T. Bouquet: Musique et musiciens à Turin de 1648 à 1775 (Turin, 1968, and Paris, 1969)
M. McGowan: ‘Les fêtes de cour en Savoie: l'oeuvre de Philippe d'Aglié’, Revue d'histoire du théâtre, xxii (1970), 181–241
A. Basso: Il Conservatorio di musica Giuseppe Verdi di Torino: storia e documenti dalle origini al 1970 (Turin, 1971)
M. Viale Ferrero: ‘Repliche a Torino di alcuni melodrammi veneziani e loro caratteristiche’, Venezia e il melodramma nel Seicento: Venice 1972, 145–72
F. Ghisi: ‘Ricordo del Teatro di Torino’, Quadrivium, xiv (1973), 37–44
A. Basso, ed.: Storia del Teatro regio di Torino (Turin, 1977–88)
M.-T. Bouquet-Boyer: Itinerari musicali della Sindone: documenti per la storia musicale di una reliquia (Turin, 1981)
G. Pestelli: Beethoven a Torino e in Piemonte nell'Ottocento (Turin, 1982)
E. Bassi: Stefano Tempia e la sua Accademia corale (Turin, 1984)
P. Bassi: Storia del Teatro Carignano di Torino dalle origini al 1799 (diss., U. of Turin, 1989)
F. Varallo: Da Nizza a Torino: i festeggiamenti per il matrimonio di Carlo Emanuele I e Caterina d'Austria (Turin, 1992)
C. Parvpassu: Torino: il Teatro regio (Turin, 1993)