Tre marcie per le bestie per pianoforte by Rieti, Vittorio

12-page whimsical avant-garde piano composition dating to very early in the career of the accomplished Egyptian-born Italian composer, one of a few of his works from the early 1920s dating to his days as a Futurist, comprised of three movements: I. Marcia funebre per un uccellino, II. Marcia nuziale per un coccodrillo, and III. Marcia militarie per le formiche. Large 4to. Original paper wrpps., very good condition. Bologna (Pizzi & C.) 1922. Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994) was an accomplished composer whose career spanned eight decades. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, he moved to Milan to originally study economics, but then studied music under Ottorino Respighi and Alfredo Casella. During his long career, he composed music for more than a dozen ballets, seven operas, five symphonies, several concertos, chamber music, string quartets, and choral work. Rieti composed Barabau for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes while temporarily living in Paris in the 1920's, and after emigrating to the United States in 1940, developed a close working relationship with George Balanchine, for whom he wrote elegant and bright Neoclassical compositions. Balanchine's ballets "Waltz Academy" and "Native Dancers" are set to Rieti's music, but their best-known collaboration is the ballet "La Sonnambula".
His compositions have been conducted by Fritz Reiner, Arturo Toscanini, and others. He was friends and colleagues with Stravinsky. He also taught at a number of institutions throughout the United States, including the Peabody Conservatory, Chicago Musical College, and New York College of Music. Scarce institutionally.