Massimo Nosetti - Santa Rita
In memory of Maestro Massimo Nosetti. So as not to forget him
On the evening of November 12, at the Molinette Hospital in Turin, where he had been admitted for tests, Massimo Nosetti—organist, teacher, composer, conductor, and organizer—passed away suddenly at the age of 53. His passing leaves a great void in musical culture, not only in Piedmont. Having graduated under the guidance of Girardi and Donati, and perfected his studies in Switzerland and France with Pidoux and Langlais, Nosetti held the chair of Organ and Organ Composition at the Conservatory of Cuneo. A man of refined culture, a good Latinist, and a connoisseur of foreign languages, he was highly appreciated internationally for an intense concert activity that led him to perform at the most important festivals and on the instruments of famous cathedrals, as well as in the Turin Cathedral where he was the titular organist. He was also a composer of organ and choral music and the founder of a valuable vocal ensemble, "Cantus firmus." Nosetti was a versatile performer, capable of interpreting organ scores on any instrument, an interpreter who preferred 19th and 20th-century music but also paid attention to the promotion of contemporary composers. His fame stems in part from having been the organizer of the S. Rita Festival in Turin for 30 years, founded when he was only 23 years old! Thanks to this famous review, the city has rightly been defined as a capital of world organ music, because at the console of the Zanin 4-manual organ designed by him (he was also a consultant for restorations and the creation of new instruments), the greatest performers have played, drawn by the level of the event he curated, but also by a widely shared esteem for a refined and varied personality, a true "gentleman," as he truly was, and not just of music. On the teaching side, Nosetti conducted numerous masterclasses on Romantic and post-Romantic organ literature, especially in Japan, Korea, and the USA. Perhaps the most representative memory is that expressed by a long-time student: "The Maestro had the ability to 'feel' music not only with the heart, but with the mind, thanks to the characteristic that made him such a great musician. That of knowing how to unite emotion and rationality, passion and control, in a synthesis so harmonic and natural that it passed almost osmotically to his students" (M. B.)
