Victor de Sabata: un profilo

The present research highlights the aesthetical world of Victor de Sabata (1892-1967), as seen as a coherent whole in its complex artistic dimension. The focus and main topic are represented by the so-called “contemplative-poem” Gethsemani (1925), probably the most idiomatic opus by the musician from Trieste. Victor de Sabata, as a composer, stays aloof from the different vagues of compositional styles of the first half of 20th century, and moves from the dissolution of the sonata-form already started by Richard Strauss to the creation of a sort of circular-type of music, giving no importance to the development of themes and preferring to varying them through a sort of puntillistic timbre-vaporization, using moreover a masterful skill to disincarnate the sound into a unique and original musical idea of Verklärung. The analysis of the musical poem illuminates even the general attitude of his conducting style, particularly concerning the EMI (His Master’s Voice) 1953 recording of Puccini’s Tosca with Maria Callas and the 1953 live concert in Salzburg with Death and Transfiguration by Richard Strauss. In addition, the Middle-European origins show a special assonance with some lyrics by Umberto Saba (1883-1957), especially the Preludio e fughe (1928) collection. The conclusions assert that there is a global circularity both as in the music composing as in his music conducting, delivering to the music history a quite transfigured legacy of a unique personality utterly independent from the dominating cultural tendencies of his century, foreshadowing a new perspective in music making as well.