Abstract

The essay (starting from a datum characteristic of the personality of Petrassi, namely his marked intellectual curiosity, and attempting an extension of the concept of philological source, in particular timbre rhythmic, the mastery of the art of sounds) focuses on some ancestries, sometimes unexpected, of the works of the Roman composer, from Debussy and Ravel, to Berg, Falla and Puccini, not failing to provide incidentally some indications on the rhetorical tradition and style not only of the italian music in the twentieth century (Strauss, Respighi, Sciostakovic, Bernstein, Bartók, Varèse, Stravinskij, Casella, Ghedini, Gerhard).