Alessandro Savasta · Musica e Scuola, year VIII, no. 15 · 1 September 1994.
Jacopo, you are only twenty-two but have done so much and achieved important results. When did your musical training begin, and how did it develop?
I began music at six, studying piano with my parents’ support and encouragement, but my interests immediately turned to composition. By twelve or thirteen I had already written three symphonies, two symphonic poems, many piano sonatas and various other music, though in a rather traditional style.
I then reached Milan’s Civica Scuola di Musica, where I was fortunate to meet Ivan Fedele. He recognised and guided my talent, helping me develop my own musical language. My first public performance was at sixteen, with a piece for piano, flute and clarinet that the audience received fairly well.
As academic composition studies continued, I became more conscious of what I did and wanted to do. Other works followed, performed in Milan theatres, then recognition in national and international competitions. My compositions are currently published by Milan’s Suvini Zerboni.
The teacher is a focal point in a pupil’s life. How did yours influence your musical thinking and human development?
Meeting Ivan Fedele was enormously fortunate. Encountering such charisma and exceptional musical preparation initially caused difficulties. I arrived with tremendous presumption, convinced of my compositions’ quality and aesthetic content. Listening to him and comparing his works made me realise my writing’s poverty.
From the beginning he criticised, questioned and rejected everything I proposed, until I even hated him. Later I forced myself to follow his advice; immediately I realised the immensity of possibility opening before me. In a few years I moved from love–hate to enormous admiration. My greatest goal became standing on my own compositionally, giving him something of mine to compare.
Fedele taught me everything he knows. He never withheld anything, not even a comma about how he writes, thinks about music or chooses and rejects techniques. But his greatest merit was drawing out what was already within me without moulding me after himself or stamping his mark on my compositions.
Many listeners to both our works notice different styles and aesthetics but a kind of continuity of language. Now we collaborate and exchange views. I submit everything I discover or develop to my teacher, sometimes managing to have him use it as material for his…
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