- Born
- Died
- Acclaimed as the most significant Italian composer of the mid-20th century (along with Luigi Dallapiccola), Goffredo Petrassi was born in Zagarolo in 1904, the son of Elissio and Erminia Petrassi. He didn't begin scoring Italian documentary films until the 1940s; unfortunately, his massive output of classical works and teaching commitments left time to score only ten movies (six features and four shorts).
Petrassi rather regretted this meagre output and called his work for the cinema "un amore non corrisposto," an unrequited love. His film scores became something of a rare treat for cinema-goers, particularly the memorable feature scores. The four rarely-seen shorts were entitled, for the record, Musica nel Tempo (1941), Creazione del Mondo (1947), Lezione di Geometria (1948) and La Porta di San Pietro di Giacomo Manzu (1964).
Although Petrassi lived to 98, his output stopped some 20 years before, and sadly for the last 10 years of his life he was essentially blind.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Marshall
- SpouseRosetta Acerbi(January 13, 1962 - March 2, 2003) (his death, 1 child)
- Composer and a leading figure of Italian modernist music.
- Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 41st Venice International Film Festival in 1984.
- The acknowledged mentor of Ennio Morricone, who repeatedly paid tribute to him during his career. He claimed that Petrassi had always been strongly disapproving of his prolific work in films, but noted wryly that Petrassi was not above writing the occasional film score himself.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content