"Echoing Dolomites"

Abstract
Italian composer, ethnomusicologist and alpinist, Leone Sinigaglia (1868-1944) is an example of an indisputably singular figure in Italian and European music history at the turn of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, his work was neglected and forgotten after he passed away towards the end of the 2ndWW. Today, his name is largely forgotten, and his prolific contribution towards classical music from the early 1900’s is insufficiently acknowledged.
His resistance to Italian musical contemporary customs of the time, overwhelmed by the powerful presence of operatic composing, provided an example to follow. Other Italian composers who were inspired by his influence , likewise, started to search for educational resources in countries abroad after their initial music studies. Sinigaglia opted for Vienna, and among all of his contemporaries (Ottorino Respighi /1879-1936/, Gian Francesco Malipiero /1882-1973/, Alfredo Casella /1883-1947/, and others, see p. 57), he was a representative of the German late romantic tendencies. He further distinguished himself by infusing his compositions with a treasury of Piedmont folkloric tunes.
Four years in Vienna (1895-1899), and then more than half a year in Prague, permitted Sinigaglia to live in closeness to personalities of perhaps one of the most focal European musical coeval centres. His promenades with Brahms (1833-1897), studies with Mandyczewski (1857-1929), and later with Dvořák (1841-1904) in Prague, brought the young Sinigaglia on the path to follow in his romantic composing development. His innate musical curiosity for popular song, which he put into practice when he returned to Turin in 1902, was greatly enhanced during this period.
Along with his composing, his endeavours resulted in an impressive number of around 500 collected Piedmont folk songs, collected from the mouth of last old connoisseurs. The complete disappearance of Leone Sinigaglia’s name after his death, along with the consecutive negligence of his revival after the Second 2ndWW in both Italy and the rest of Europe, is the enigma which had put this study on its itinerary. His name, one among the most prominent music composers in the first decades of the 20th century in Europe and America, was eclipsed in Italy due to his Jewish origins in 1938, after antisemitic racial laws were enacted.
His symphonic works are, however, to this day never programmed for concerts, and his chamber music remains under the firm cover of oblivion.
The methodology of the investigation for this study rests historical which is immanent to its biographical character, with some relevant interviews I conducted. By the realized research, I aim to achieve a rediscovery of the unjustly forgotten composer. I intend to give some musical, social, historical, as well as anthropological contexts to consider for the negligence of Sinigaglia’s contribution to the Italian and European musical scene at the turn of the 20th century until the present time.
Consulting for the most part documents stowed in the Sinigaglia Archive in Turin induced me to conclude as follows: the declining of Sinigaglia’s notability by the end of his life was not due to a reduced number of his works in years towards the 2ndWW. The fading trajectory of his carrier was a consequence of historical and sociopolitical circumstances that was fuelled by anti-Semitism, anti-localism, and sectarianism.
The purpose of this study is to give new musical importance to the name of the composer Leone Sinigaglia for years to come.