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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Donald Martino (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer.
Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Martino studied composition with Ernst Bacon, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, and Luigi Dallapiccola. Most of his mature works (including pseudo-tonal works such as Paradiso Choruses and Seven Pious Pieces) were composed using the twelve-tone method; his sound world more closely resembled the lyrical Dallapiccola's than his other teachers'.
The pianist Easley Blackwood commissioned Martino's sonata Pianississimo, explicitly requesting that it be one of the most difficult pieces ever written. The resulting work is indeed of epic difficulty, but has been recorded several times. (Blackwood declined to perform it.)
Martino presented Milton Babbitt with at least two musical birthday cards: B,a,b,b,it,t on his 50th birthday and Triple Concerto on his 60th.
Martino, who taught at Yale University, the New England Conservatory of Music, Brandeis University, and Harvard University, won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1974 for his chamber work Notturno.
In 1991, the journal Perspectives of New Music published a 292-page tribute to Martino.
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