Here is a monograph all about the print house La Musica Moderna, whose story was entwined with that of Italy's popular culture of songs and their authors for 77 years (1930-2007). Published with support from the Cologni Foundation, the book was presented in the rooms of Castello Sforzesco in Milan on 21 November 2017. The event hosted speeches by Alberto Cavalli, the director of the Cologni Foundation; Silvio Antiga, the president of Tipoteca Italiana; the music critic Mario Luzzatto Fegiz; and Filippo Del Corno, Milan's culture councillor.
The book's author and former owner of La Musica Moderna, Salvatore Siragusa, recounts how he inherited the business founded by his grandfather, and how he kept it thriving until the advent of music technology and software.
Back in the day, the company offered music publishers full service, from the manuscript to the printed page, and executed in-house the different processes of typography, recording, printing and binding. The resulting scores were needed for all purposes: musical instruments, orchestras, operas and performances. "La Musica Moderna was the foremost if not only printing house in its league, and patronised by the best publishing houses, which would periodically send their musical novelties to the thousands of musicians whose addresses were kept in the shop's very precious archive," says Siragusa.
La fabbrica delle note di carta.
La Musica Moderna (1930-2007) e i protagonisti della canzone italiana
Salvatore Siragusa
Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione, Treviso, 2017
