Massimo Mila e l'impegno: interazioni tra critica militante e musicologia dal dopoguerra agli anni Settanta

This essay examines the interactions between militant criticism and musicology in the production of historian and music critic Massimo Mila, a prominent figure in 20th century Italian cultural life. The interactions are analyzed with respect to the idea of the role and function of the intellectual in society, in the context of a debate that already started in Italy in the first half of the century, and further developed after the Second World War, reaching its climax during the so-called “years of political commitment” (1965-1975). The study of the relationship between Militant Criticism and Musicology is based on a comparative reading of Mila’s writings published in three periodicals, which have been selected for their representativeness and for the long-standing collaboration he had with them: a weekly magazine, L’Espresso, a newspaper, La Stampa, and a musicological review, Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana. The comparative reading revealed two aspects of the interaction between the two areas, and the appearance of some specific topics. The aspects are: the transmigration of the writings from the journalistic to the musicological domain (not the other way around); the style of the writings, which until 1970 is halfway between militant criticism and essai, that is, between a journalistic style, also employed to popularize specialized knowledge in a rigorous way, and the exegetical study, characterized by a technical-stylistic description of the compositions, which is increasingly present in musicological publications. The recurrent arguments, in turn, are: the relationship between music and the public, which in the period considered involved above all the relationship between “new music” and its communicative potential; a special focus on problems of musical organization; and the importance of music education in the framework of a “school for all”. The essay refers back to the author’s ethical-political intellectual matrices and examines the quality of the interactions between music criticism and musicology to bring Mila’s critical methodology into focus.