Guido Alberto Fano’s vocal chamber works form an important part of his musical output and mark the three crucial phases of his artistic growth. His earliest songs date from the last years of the 19th century, during his period of training and the start of his musical career in Bologna, using texts by local poets such as Angelina de Leva, Luigi Arturo Bresciani and Giuseppe Lipparini. Then, during the first fifteen years of the 20th century, his most “experimental” years, Fano began to draw inspiration from some of the most distinguished names in Italian poetry, including Boccaccio, Carducci and Pascoli. Finally, his last creative period, after the 1930s, saw a return to the vocal genre with seven pieces on poems by D’Annunzio and one by Carducci, all written in 1945. Fano usually calls his vocal compositions “canti”, a choice often shared by his colleagues of the so-called “generation of the eighties”. On the whole, Fano’s music reveals a commitment to avoid stereotypes and surrendering to the vestiges of easy appeal, demonstrating the composer’s sensitivity in responding to the ethical demands of modernity, with that determined solicitude which characterised the inner workings of the great composers of the early 20th century.
- Vitale Fano