Ennio Porrino

Ennio Porrino (20 January 1910 – 25 September 1959) was an Italian composer and teacher. Amongst his compositions were orchestral works, an oratorio and several operas and ballets. His best known work is the symphonic poem Sardegna, a tribute to his native Sardinia, which premiered in Florence in 1933.

Life and career

Porrino was born in Cagliari and studied at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He later studied with Ottorino Respighi from 1932 to 1935. According to Alfredo Casella, he became one of Respighi's disciples, championing an Italian national music movement and openly opposing composers such as Casella, Dallapiccola, and Malipiero for their Modernist music. After Respighi's death in 1936, Porrino and Respighi's widow Elsa completed his unfinished opera Lucrezia for its posthumous premiere at La Scala in 1937.

Porrino died in Rome in 1959 at the age of 49. The Concorso Internazionale di Pianoforte Ennio Porrino was established in his memory in 1980.

Selected filmography The Howl (1948) Altura (1949)