A New Biographical Profile of Barbara Giuranna Based on Her Papers

Abstract

This essay stems from a study of composer Elena Barbàra Giuranna’s fund, now at the Istituto di Studi Musicali “Goffredo Petrassi” at the Fondazione Campus Internazionale di Musica, Latina. A prominent figure in 20^th-century Italian music, Giuranna was among Italy’s earliest women to graduate in composition — at San Pietro a Majella Conservatory, Naples (1923) — and to have her works performed in the United States. Her music was published by Ricordi. She was appointed Accademica di Santa Cecilia in 1983. Her papers — most notably her typewritten autobiographical memoir — let us reconstruct a much more thorough biography than those currently available. After the war, Giuranna had been seen as a regime composer, due to such works of hers as X Legio and Patria, and had been isolated as a result. Now, some documents — e.g. the typewritten copy of her letter to the Purge Commission — shed new light on her actual involvement with Fascism. Finally, drawing from her own incomplete typewritten list, as well as from programs, printed and manuscript music, a complete catalog of Giuranna’s works has been put together for the first time.