NICOLAS FLAGELLO
Nicolas Flagello. Photo provided courtesy of Dianne Flagello.
The story of Nicolas Flagello embodies both tragedy and pathos, but it
is one whose broad outlines are not uncommon throughout musical history.
Born to a musical family with deep roots in the culture of nineteenth-century
Italy, Flagello displayed a significant talent early on, performing publicly
as a pianist while still a child. A student -- and later colleague --
of Vittorio Giannini, Flagello was deeply imbued with the values and practices
of European Late Romanticism. Reaching maturity during the late 1940s
and early 1950s, he found the hard-edged Modernist styles then in ascendancy
cold and impersonal and alien to his temperament. To many of those in
positions of power and influence, his music seemed hopelessly out of date,
fifty years behind its times. Driven by the idealism instilled in him
by Giannini, he produced a prodigious body of work, with little concern
for the practical exigencies of a composing career. Then, approaching
middle age with little reputation and no means of financial support, he
descended into a self-destructive course that alienated friends and allies,
damaged his creative abilities, and eventually cost him his health. Only
after serious illness had forced his withdrawal from public life did interest
in his work and recognition of its merit begin to gather momentum.
(From Voices in the Wilderness, p. 327)
