A surprising discovery
In 1980, the producer Nikolaos Velissiotis found among a thousand papers on display in a flea market in Paris, an issue of "L'Italie et la France" that bore an article with an intriguing title, to say the least, "Richard Strauss plagiaire?" which commented on an essay by the Italian musicologist Giovanni Tebaldini about the obvious similarities between a semi-unknown work by a certain Vittorio Gnecchi entitled Cassandra, and one of the masterpieces of world musical drama, Strauss' Elektra.
Thus began an exciting search for the sources of this mysterious issue, which immediately proved to be very difficult, given the almost complete absence of Gnecchi's scores both on the shelves of the publishing house Ricordi and on those of libraries and conservatories. Until, thanks to a meeting with Vittorio Gnecchi's niece, Vittoria Greppi Di Bussero, and a great-nephew, the theatrical producer Antonio Gnecchi Ruscone, we discovered a fortuitous warehouse in a small sacristy in Verderio, a small town in Lombardy, containing many of Vittorio Gnecchi's works.
It was a surprising discovery.
An extraordinarily new music came to light, reconciling the great tradition of the late Verdi with the brilliant acquisitions of Wagner's art, or better still, of Mahler and Bruckner; music that had lived a brief life in the first half of the twentieth century, only to be condemned to an inexplicable oblivion that lasted more than half a century.
Birth of the Association
Given the importance of the works, it was decided first of all to make Cassandra executable. Our friend and musicologist Marco Iannelli was asked to collaborate in the revision of all the material found. And Cassandra on July 13, 2000 it opened the 16th Festival de Radio France et Montpellier in the great hall of the Opera Berlioz-Le Corum. The opera, conducted by Enrique Diemecke was recorded and published on CD.
After the success of the performance, it was decided to create the Associazione Musicale Vittorio Gnecchi Ruscone, securing all rights to the music from the heirs. The Music Director from the beginning to 2022 has been Nikos Velissiotis who had directed most of the initiavies. Among the supporters from the beginning were Stefano Gnecchi R., its first President, Isabella Gnecchi R., Ludovico Gnecchi R., Giancarlo Carlotti di Riparbella, Laura Gnecchi R. Feltrinelli, Luisa Gnecchi R., Luigi Crosti and Giulio Fumagalli Romario.
Richard Strauss plagiaire, L’Italie et la France, 1909
The Association in its first years
Marco Iannelli was commissioned to undertake a more precise study of the entire documentary material: a series of small and great treasures came to light, absolutely unpublished, involving the greatest names in Italian art at the beginning of the 20th century. Such as the precious correspondence with Luigi Illica (the librettist of Cassandra), indispensable to have a more precise idea not only about the composition of the opera, but also about the events that followed the first performance in Bologna in 1905, conducted by Arturo Toscanini; or the letters of Francesco Balilla Pratella (the first to dedicate a large volume to Gnecchi), Tullio Serafin Giulio and Tito Ricordi, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Gabriele d'Annunzio, as well as the programs, posters, newspapers of the time, and much more.
From this immense mass of documents took shape the first musicological study dedicated to the opera Cassandra, to its genesis and fortune. The Cassandra case by Marco Iannelli had a second edition expanded with new discoveries also published in English that in 2009 won the prestigious International Prize "Luigi Illica.
Not only. In November 2007, at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Cassandra finally returned to the stage, performed together with R. Strauss's Elektra, thus giving the general public the opportunity to listen to and understand the close relationships that indissolubly bind these two works and that have marked (with different outcomes) the history of the early twentieth century music.
The Association today
Today the work started with Nikos Velissiotis of recovering the music and preparing the materials for the performance of Vittorio Gnecchi's most important works continues and, as they are completed, they are made available at Universal/Ricordi.
The works have been presented to a specialized audience in the Pavia Ansaldo Conference Room in Milan with two press conferences one on January 27, 2015 and the other on March 21, 2019 with the participation among others of Quirino Principe, Francesco Libetta, Pierangelo Pelucchi.
Proud to have brought to light an extraordinary missing music, the Association continues the work of collection, recovery and restoration of all the material found.
