Luciano Sgrizzi

In 1980 he was named Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and in 1985 was named Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French Cultural Minister Jack Lang. He died in Monte Carlo, (Monaco), where he had lived for the last few years of his life.

He settled in Switzerland, where he remained throughout the Second World War, working as pianist and organist for Swiss-Italian Radio in Lugano (with which he worked until 1974), and also as a literary critic, writing plays and arranging literary works for the radio. In 1946 he became interested in the harpsichord, and devoted himself thereafter to the study of early music. He performed with the Società Cameristica di Lugano from 1950 to 1960. Salzburg, Ascona, Stresa, Spoleto, Rome, Milan, Paris, Liege, Flanders and Geneva were some of the festivals where he appeared as harpsichordist or pianist.

He had been publishing his own compositions since 1933, but in 1960 devoted himself full-time to the transcription and editing of 17th- and 18th-century Italian music. His editions included the Sonates pour clavecin of Benedetto Marcello, and Neuf toccates pour clavier by Alessandro Scarlatti.

Luciano Sgrizzi was born in Bologna, from whose Philharmonic Academy he graduated as a pianist in 1923. He toured South America for three years, then returned to Italy to continue his organ and composition studies. He gained a second piano diploma in 1931 from the Conservatory of Parma. Not wanting to be associated with the Fascist regime, he left Italy and studied musicology and composition with Albert Bertelin in Paris.

Luciano Sgrizzi (30 October 1910 – 11 September 1994) was an Italian harpsichordist, organist, pianist and composer.