Showing posts with label Cello. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cello. Show all posts

9 February 2019

Ferdinando Carulli - classical guitarist and composer

Neapolitan wrote first guide to playing the instrument


Ferdinando Carulli was born in Naples but spent much of his life in Paris, where he taught and composed guitar music
Ferdinando Carulli was born in Naples but spent much of
his life in Paris, where he taught and composed guitar music
The composer Ferdinando Carulli, who published the first complete method for playing the classical guitar as well as writing more than 400 works for the instrument, was born on this day in 1770 in Naples.

Carulli was also influential in changing the design of the guitar, which had a smaller body and produced a less resonant sound when he started out, to something much more like the classical guitars of today.

The son of an intellectual advisor to the Naples Jurisdiction, Carulli first trained as a cellist and received instruction in musical theory from a local priest.

He became interested in the guitar in his 20s and became so enthusiastic about the instrument he decided to devote himself to it entirely.  The guitar was little played and there were no guitar teachers in Naples in the late 18th century, so Carulli had to devise his own method of playing.

In time, he began to give concerts in Naples, playing some pieces of his own composition. These were popular, attracting large audiences who enjoyed the different sound that the guitar produced.

Carulli did much to make  the guitar widely popular
Carulli did much to make
the guitar widely popular
This encouraged Carulli to venture further afield and he engaged on a tour of Europe. He met his future wife, Marie-Josephine Boyer, in France. They married in around 1801 and had a son, Gustavo.  Carulli moved with his family to Milan, where he began to publish some of his works, but it was not long before they decided to settle in Paris, which was then seen as the capital of the music world.

Carulli became both a successful musician and teacher in Paris, attracting other guitarists from across Europe to join him in the French capital, helping him fulfil his ambition of making guitar music fashionable and popular, even in such a challenging environment. Members of the Parisian nobility would come to him for lessons. Filippo Gragnani, another Italian guitarist, with whom he collaborated on some pieces, devoted a number of duets to Carulli.

It was in Paris that Carulli wrote his method of classical guitar, entitled Harmony Applied to the Guitar. The book was hugely popular and many editions were published. His most influential work, Method, Op. 27, published in 1810, is still used widely today in training students of the classical guitar.

The guitar Carulli would have first played would have had five pairs of strings, similar to this one
The guitar Carulli would have first played would have had
five pairs of strings, similar to this one
Later in life, Carulli worked with the instrument makers Antonio de Torres Jurado and Pierre René Lacôte in introducing significant changes for improving the sound of the guitar.

By the early 19th century, the guitar had evolved from a shallow lute-like instrument with five pairs of strings to something more closely resembling the guitars of today, with a long neck and circular sound hole in the middle, and with a deeper body providing greater resonance of sound. Early guitars produced a sound more like that of a violin.

Carulli died in Paris in February 1841, eight days after his 71st birthday.

The Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples was established during Napoleonic rule of the city
The Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples
was established during Napoleonic rule of the city
Travel tip:

The famous Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples evolved from four institutions set up in the 16th century with the prime purpose of providing a refuge for orphan children.  The name ‘conservatorio’ relates to this original purpose, which was to conserve the lives of the children.  The oldest was the orphanage of Santa Maria di Loreto, situated in the poor fisherman’s district of the city. These institutions aimed to provide tuition in various skills, including music.  In time they acquired such a good reputation for providing a musical education that they began to be seen as music colleges primarily, and Naples eventually became one of the most important centres for musical training in Europe, nicknamed the “conservatory of Europe". Under the rule of Joachim Murat, the French cavalry leader Napoleon installed as King of Naples for a short period in the early 19th century, the original four conservatories were consolidated into a single institution, which was relocated in 1826 to the premises of the ex-monastery, San Pietro a Maiella.

Look for a hotel in Naples with Booking.com


The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples  adjoins the Royal Palace
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples
adjoins the Royal Palace
Travel tip:

The most famous musical venue in Naples is the Teatro di San Carlo opera house in Via San Carlo, directly adjoining the Royal Palace. It is the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before both the Milan's Teatro alla Scala (La Scala) and Venice's Teatro La Fenice.  It is less known that there is smaller theater inside the Royal Palace, often used by the Neapolitan ballet company. Among the resident composers and musical directors in the 19th century, as the venue’s prestige grew, were Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti.  One name readily associated with San Carlo is the great tenor, Enrico Caruso, although the Naples-born star in fact did not appear there after 1901, having taken umbrage at being booed by a section of the crowd during a performance of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.


More reading:

Antonio Janigro - the cellist who found accidental fame in Yugoslavia

How Luigi Boccherini popularised cello music in the 18th century

How Domenico Sarro's opera was given historic status as the first to be played at Teatro San Carlo

Also on this day:

1621: Alessandro Ludovisi becomes Pope Gregory XV


21 January 2019

Antonio Janigro - conductor and cellist

Musician who found ‘accidental’ fame in Yugoslavia


Antonio Janigro spent much of his career in Yugoslavia after being trapped there on holiday
Antonio Janigro spent much of his career in
Yugoslavia after being trapped there on holiday
The conductor and cellist Antonio Janigro, who spent more than two decades as an orchestra leader in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, was born on this day in 1918 in Milan.

An accomplished cello soloist in Italy, his adventure in Yugoslavia happened by accident, in a way.  He was on holiday there in 1939 when the Second World War began, leaving him stranded with no prospect of returning home.

Happily, Zagreb Conservatory offered Janigro a job as professor of cello and chamber music. This turned out to be a providential turn of fate and he was to remain in Yugoslavia for much of his life.

He founded the school of modern cello playing in Yugoslavia, formed the exemplary chamber orchestra I Solisti di Zagreb with Dragutin Hrdjok in 1954 and for 10 years led the Radio Zagreb symphony orchestra.

Raised in a house on the Via Guido d’Arezzo in Milan, Janigro was born in a musical family, although his father’s dream of becoming a concert pianist had to be abandoned, sadly, when he lost his arm after being shot in the First World War. 

Janigro himself studied piano from the age of six, and then began playing the cello in 1926, when he was eight years old. In less than a year he had progressed enough to be admitted to the Milan Conservatory.

Janigro was admitted to the Milan Conservatory at the age of nine
Janigro was admitted to the Milan
Conservatory at the age of nine
At the age of 11, through the efforts of his mother Nicola, he found the opportunity to play for Pablo Casals, the world renowned  Spanish cellist, who gave him a recommendation to study at the École Normale in Paris, describing him as “a brilliant instrumentalist with a fine sense of style.”

Janigro moved to Paris in 1934, when he was 16, coming into contact there with other great cellists and musicians, including the violinist Jacques Thibaud, the composers Paul Dukas and Igor Stravinsky and the conductor Nadia Boulanger. The pianist Dinu Lipatti and the violinst Genette Neveu were fellow students.

He began a solo career immediately after graduating, playing in recitals with Lipatti and Paul Badura-Skoda, another gifted pianist. He often travelled between Milan and Paris on the railway, seeking out empty compartments in which to practice his cello.

Janigro’s relocation to Yugoslavia may have been an accident, but he would remain there continuously until 1968. At the same time, he maintained his solo career, travelling as far away as South America and the Far East. In 1959, he was Hungarian conductor Fritz Reiner's soloist in a renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording of Richard Strauss's Don Quixote.

He returned to Milan after the break-up of I Solisti di Zagreb but then devoted himself increasingly to teaching, with positions at the Düsseldorf Conservatory, the Salzburg Mozarteum, and the Stuttgart Conservatory attracting students from all over the globe.

Among his many students who would themselves excel were the Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga, the Brazilian Antonio Meneses and the Italian Mario Brunello, the latter two bringing him prestige by winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition.

He died in 1989, having spent his final years in Zagreb.

The Parco Guido Vergani is a park established on former industrial land in the heart of Milan
The Parco Guido Vergani is a park established on former
industrial land in the heart of Milan
Travel tip:

Janigro’s childhood home in Via Guido d’Arezzo in Milan is close to Parco Guido Vergani,  also known as Parco Pallavicino, an area of reclaimed land that used to be occupied until the mid-1930s by railway sidings and the small Sempione Airport. The park, inaugurated in the sixties, covers an area of ​​approximately 88,000 square metres. The park is rich in tree varieties, a fountain and areas for games and dog walking. Like most of the green areas in Milan, it was named after famous personalities - in this case, the Milanese journalist and writer Guido Vergani.

Janigro was a precociously talented child musician who was admitted to Milan Conservatory (above) at nine years old
Janigro was a precociously talented child musician who was
admitted to Milan Conservatory (above) at nine years old
Travel tip:

The Milan Conservatory - also known as Conservatorio di musica “Giuseppe Verdi” di Milano - was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year with premises in the cloisters of the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Passione in Via Conservatorio. The largest institute of musical education in Italy, its alumni include Giacomo Puccini, Amilcare Ponchielli, Arrigo Boito, Pietro Mascagni, Riccardo Muti and Ludovico Einaudi.

More reading:

How Luigi Boccherini popularised cello music in the 18th century

The double bass virtuoso Giovanni Bottesini

Alfredo Casella - composer from a family of cellists

Also on this day:

1916: The birth of World Cup-winning footballer Pietro Rava

1926: The birth of Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Camillo Golgi

1949: The birth of chef Gennaro Contaldo


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19 February 2016

Luigi Boccherini – musician

Composer gave the cello prominence in his charming quintets


Boccherini playing the cello, thought to  have been painted between 1764 and  1767 by Pompeo Batoni
Boccherini playing the cello, thought to
have been painted between 1764 and
1767 by Pompeo Batoni
Cellist and composer Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was born on this day in 1743 in Lucca in Tuscany.

Boccherini is particularly known for a minuet from his String Quintet in E, which became popular after its use by characters posing as musicians in the 1955 film, The Ladykillers, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.

Though his works became neglected after his death in 1805 they enjoyed a revival after the Boccherini Quintet was formed in Rome, who started performing them in the 1950s.

Boccherini’s father was himself a cellist and double bass player and sent the young Luigi to study in Rome.

In 1757 they went to Vienna together where the court employed them both as musicians in the Imperial Theatre orchestra.


Listen to Boccherini's String Quintet in E, which featured in The Ladykillers





In 1764 Luigi obtained a permanent position back in Lucca, playing in both the church and theatre orchestras.

But after the death of his father he moved to Paris where some of his early compositions were published.

Boccherini later moved to Spain, where for a time he enjoyed the patronage of the Royal family. But one day King Charles III of Spain ordered him to change a passage of his music. Boccherini doubled the passage instead and was immediately dismissed from the King’s service.
The 1955 movie The Ladykillers featured Boccherini's String Quintet in E
Movie poster from The Ladykillers
He went to live in a small town in the mountains in Spain, where he wrote many of his most famous works.

He still enjoyed patronage from the King of Spain’s younger brother, the Infante, from the French ambassador to Spain, Lucien Bonaparte, and from King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Towards the end of Boccherini’s life it is believed he fell on hard times. He had lost both his first and second wives and four of his daughters.

He died in Madrid in 1805 and was survived by two sons. He was buried in Madrid but his remains were brought back to Italy a century later and he was reburied in the Church of San Francesco in Lucca.

Boccherini was a brilliant cellist who received much praise for his performances and he brought the cello to prominence with the music he composed, rather than just using it for accompaniment.

His Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid  became popular after it was used in the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World in 2003.

The Boccherini Quintet was founded after two of its members discovered a complete collection of Luigi Boccherini string quintets in Paris. They performed the long-neglected music all over the world and made many recordings.

Boccherini's home town of Lucca in Tuscany   is famous for its Renaissance walls
Boccherini's home town of Lucca in Tuscany
is famous for its Renaissance walls

Travel tip:

Lucca, where Boccherini was born, is famous for its Renaissance walls, which have remained intact over the centuries. A promenade now runs along the top of the walls, providing a popular place to walk round the city enjoying the views. The Luigi Boccherini Musical Institute in Piazza del Suffragio in Lucca was founded in 1842 to provide a musical education up to the standard adopted by the famous 
Conservatories of Milan and Paris.


The Church of San Francesco in Lucca, where Boccherini was reburied
The Church of San Francesco in Lucca, where
Boccherini was reburied
Travel tip:

Luigi Boccherini was reburied in the Church of San Francesco in Lucca in the 1920s after his remains were brought back from Spain.  The Gothic church and monastery in Piazza San Francesco in the historic centre of the city was built out of gravel in the 14th century, not far from Lucca’s historic Piazza dell’Anfiteatro.


More reading:

The cellist who found 'accidental' fame in Yugoslavia

The composer credited with the 'revival' that shot Vivaldi to 20th century popularity

How soprano Cecilia Bartoli put spotlight on 'forgotten' composers

Also on this day:

1953: The birth of comic actor and writer Massimo Troisi

1977: The birth of operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo

(Picture credits: Lucca walls by Notafly; Church of San Francesco by Sailko; via Wikimedia Commons)


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