Giulia Recli
Giulia Recli (1884-1970), daughter of the pianist Luisa Biancardi and the commendatore Luigi Recli, lived in a protected, stimulating environment rich in high culture. She was taught piano by Maestro Giovanni Maria Anfossi and voice by the Romagnolo tenor Alessandro Bonci, after whom the Lirico Theater of Cesena is named today. These two exceptional mentors planted in young Giulia the seeds of artistic recognition everywhere. She had the honor of studying Composition under Maestro Ildebrando Pizzetti, one of the key figures in 20th-century music, who directed several conservatories and was named an Accademico d’Italia in 1939. Meanwhile, the musician received commissions and requests from the most prestigious theaters and often collaborated with her sister Maria, a poet and painter.
She was the author of “Alba dell’Anima,” the symphonic poem presented at the Augusteo in Rome, where for the first time a “female composer” appeared on the theater calendar. Despite the challenges of being a woman, Il Giornale d’Italia referred to her as a “baptism of feminism in music.” It was the same years when Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, and Debussy were spoken of as the most celebrated composers and men of 20th-century music. Meanwhile, wars, as always, limited performances and artistic expression, instilling a sense of inner drama in musicians.
The dawn of the post-war era was needed before Giulia could again be spoken of throughout the 1950s. Due to her artistic merits and great spirit, she was appointed vice president of the Italian Musicians’ Union and president of the Lyceum in Milan, while her works were performed in Europe and America with great success. However, the 1960s pushed her toward more educational than concert activities. She became a wonderful teacher, beloved and sought after by young talents, while also writing and dedicating herself to music criticism and essays. Her work was recognized by the Queen of Italy and the Republic itself, which awarded her the title of Commander of the Republic in 1964 and again in 1969. In 1970, she managed to found a musical ensemble in her beloved Brivio, a village along the Adda River that cradled her last days; few were founded by a woman, and Brivio bears that honor and responsibility. Yes, because music, before being an emotion, is responsibility and wisdom. Giulia Recli, whose name the band carries by the musician’s own will, left her final breaths on the peaceful and hidden stretch of the Adda River, certain that music would remember its sweetness. She passed away on December 19, 1970, while in some room, a few students bid her farewell, gently playing her masterpieces.
