Andrea Gabrieli - composer

Father of the Venetian School

Andrea Gabrieli was the organist at the
Basilica di San Marco in Venice

The Venetian composer and organist Andrea Gabrieli, sometimes known as Andrea di Cannaregio, notable for his madrigals and large-scale choral works written for public ceremonies, died on this day in 1585.

His nephew, Giovanni Gabrieli, is more widely remembered yet Andrea, who was organist of the Basilica di San Marco – St Mark’s – for the last 19 years of his life, was a significant figure in his lifetime, the first member of the Venetian School of composers to achieve international renown. He was influential in spreading the Venetian style of music in Germany as well as in Italy.

Little is known about Andrea’s early life aside from the probability that he was born in the parish of San Geremia in Cannaregio and that he may have been a pupil of the Franco-Flemish composer Adrian Willaert, who was maestro di cappella at St Mark’s from 1527 until 1562.

In 1562 – the year of Willaert’s death – Andrea is on record as having travelled to Munich in Germany, where he met and became friends with Orlando di Lasso, who wrote secular songs in French, Italian, and German, as well as Latin.  There was evidence in the later work of Di Lasso of a Venetian influence, while Gabrieli took back to Venice numerous ideas he learned from Di Lasso.

In 1566 Gabrieli was chosen for the post of organist at St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious musical posts in northern Europe, and he retained this position for the rest of his life.

Giovanni Gabrieli published his uncle Andrea's
music after his death

The acoustics of St. Mark's helped him develop a grand ceremonial style. In part, this was because his duties at St. Mark's included composing music for ceremonial affairs.

These included the festivities accompanying the celebration of the victory over the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and the music for the visit to Venice by a party of princes from Japan in 1585.

He was also renowned, towards the end of his career, as a teacher. His nephew, Giovanni, was a pupil, along with the music theorist Lodovico Zacconi and the German composer Hans Leo Hassler.

Andrea Gabrieli is reckoned to have written more than 100 motets and madrigals, which are pieces written for voices rather than musical instruments, and a smaller number of orchestral or instrumental works.

The church of San Geremia sits by the junction of the
Grand Canal and the Cannaregio Canal

His music featured repetition of phrases with different combinations of voices at different pitch levels. In many ways, his music defined the Venetian style for future generation.

Little of his music was published during his own lifetime, apparently through his own reluctance, but it was preserved largely thanks to Giovanni, who recognised its importance and, after his uncle’s death at the age of about 52, of unknown causes, he took it upon himself to publish it.

Among the works Giovanni published was his Magnificat for three choirs and orchestra, almost certainly written to be performed in St. Mark’s, which is regarded as one of Andrea Gabrieli’s finest compositions.

The Ormesina Canal in the Cannaregio district

Travel tip:

The church of San Geremia, where Andrea Gabrieli probably played at some stage early in his career, is situated at the junction of the Grand Canal with the Cannaregio Canal, which is one of the main waterways of the city but which is often overlooked by tourists. The Ormesina and Sensa Canals, which run parallel with the Cannaregio Canal, are lined with good cafes and restaurants and interesting shops, but mostly they are the preserve of people living in the area.

The Basilica di San Marco

Travel tip:

The original church on the site of the Basilica di San Marco may have been built in the ninth century, although the earliest recorded mention was dated 1084. It has been rebuilt several times, the present neoclassical church dating from a rebuilding of 1795-1806, for patrician Pietro Zaguri, by Giannantonio Selva. 

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Leonardo De Lorenzo – flautist

Flair for the flute led to international career

Leonardo De Lorenzo played with the
New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Leonardo De Lorenzo, a brilliant flute player who passed on his knowledge of the instrument to others through his books, was born on this day in 1875 in Viggiano in the province of Potenza.

De Lorenzo started playing the flute at the age of eight and then moved to Naples to attend the music conservatory of San Pietro a Majella.

He became an itinerant flautist until he was 16, when he moved to America, where he worked in a hotel. He returned to Italy in 1896 to do his military service in Alessandria and became a member of a military band directed by Giovanni Moranzoni, whose son was to become a famous conductor of the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

De Lorenzo then began a career as a flautist and toured Italy, Germany, England and South Africa, joining an orchestra in Cape Town for a while. Eventually he returned to Naples to continue his studies.

When he travelled to America again, he became first flautist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Gustav Mahler. He was warned never to answer back to Mahler, who had a reputation for being unpleasant. Later, in his writing, he recalled that the only time he dared speak to Mahler was after his name had been misspelled in the programme as ‘de Lorenzo’ with a lower case ‘d’. He politely requested the correction saying: ‘De Lorenzo, please, Maestro.’

Gustav Mahler, who was director of the New York
Philharmonic when De Lorenzo was first flautist

He also went on to play for the New York Symphony Orchestra and for orchestras in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Rochester.

While playing in Minneapolis, he met Maud Peterson, a pianist who frequently accompanied him, and they were later married.

De Lorenzo became professor for flute at the Eastman School of Music and on his retirement concentrated on composing music for the flute and writing about the instrument.

His compositions, Saltarella and Pizzica-pizzica are a homage to the traditional music of his native town.

In 1951 he published the book, My Complete Story of the Flute, after carrying out extensive research.

On August 29 1955 the Los Angeles Flute Club gave a concert in which they performed his compositions to celebrate his 80th birthday.

De Lorenzo died at his home in Santa Barbara in 1962 at the age of 86.

The International Flute Competition, Leonardo De Lorenzo, is held every two years in his birthplace, Viggiano.

Musicians of Viggiano, as imagined in a book in 1853

Travel Tip:

Viggiano, where De Lorenzo was born, is a town in the province of Potenza in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. It is well known for its migrant street musicians and for harp making. Many street musicians from Viggiano have gone on to play in orchestras in Europe, America and Australia. Viggiano is also home to Europe’s biggest oil field.

The Church of San Pietro a Majella in Naples

Travel tip:

San Pietro a Majella, the Naples Music Conservatory, occupies the former monastery adjoining the church of San Pietro a Majella at the western end of Via Tribunali in Naples. Formerly housed in the monastery of San Sebastiano, the Music Conservatory moved to its present location in 1826.

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Lamberto Maggiorani - unlikely movie star

Factory worker who shot to fame in Bicycle Thieves

Maggiorani with Enzo Staiola, who played his son, Bruno,
in Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves

Lamberto Maggiorani, who found overnight fame after starring in the neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves (1948), was born on this day in 1909 in Rome.

Maggiorani was cast in the role of Antonio Ricci, a father desperate for work to support his family in post-War Rome, who is offered a job pasting posters to advertising hoardings but can take it only on condition that he has a bicycle – essential for moving around the city carrying his ladder and bucket.

He has one, but it has been pawned.  To retrieve it, his wife, Marie, strips the bed of her dowry sheets, which the pawn shop takes in exchange for the bicycle. They are happy, because Antonio has a job which will support her, their son Bruno and their new baby.

However, on his first day in the job the bicycle is stolen, snatched by a thief who waits for Antonio to climb to the top of his ladder before seizing his moment.  The remainder of the film follows Antonio and Bruno as they try to find the bicycle.

As a portrait of life among the disadvantaged working class in Rome in the late 1940s, the film is hailed as a masterpiece, director Vittorio de Sica and his screenwriter Cesare Zavattini fêted by the critics for turning a little-known novel by Luigi Bartolini into a piece of cinema genius.

For Maggiorani, however, his participation was something of a bitter-sweet experience.

An original poster from the 1948 movie

De Sica, who had won an Academy Award two years earlier with Shoeshine, attracted plenty of interest when news spread of his new project, with one American producer willing to offer a lucrative deal to cast Cary Grant in the lead role.

It did not interest De Sica, who was determined to be faithful to the principles of the burgeoning neorealist genre be picking actors who would infuse his characters with realism, regardless of whether they had any experience.

Maggiorani was not an actor at all, but a worker in a steel factory. He had himself experienced unemployment as Rome and De Sica saw him as perfect for the role of Antonio.

Delighted, Maggiorani accepted De Sica’s offer, taking time off work for the filming. He was paid $1,000 dollars, the equivalent of about $10,500 dollars (€8,800) today, with which he was able to give his family their first real holiday and buy new furniture for their home.

His performance was magnificent.  Sometimes, De Sica had to use another actor to dub Maggiorani’s dialogue because his strong Roman accent was occasionally hard to follow, but otherwise he was delighted with how his unlikely protégé understood the way he wanted his character to be portrayed. The critics hailed the arrival of a new star.

Yet once the fuss died down and his pay cheque was spent, Maggiorani found his life had changed. One thousand dollars might have been a large sum but it did not set him up for life.

The director Vittorio de Sica

He went back to the factory, but when orders fell away he was told he was no longer required, the perception being that he must be worth millions of lire after his movie success and that there were others whose need for work was greater.

Shunned by many of his friends, too, after failing to share his perceived wealth, he went back to the movie industry, assuming he would be offered more parts.

He was given some, but usually they were minor roles. Pier Paolo Pasolini gave him a bit part in Mamma Roma, a film about a prostitute trying to start a new life and starring Anna Magnani, but only because he thought his name in the credits would raise the movie’s profile.

De Sica was reluctant to use him at all as anything but an extra. Zavattini recognised and sympathised with his predicament and wrote a screenplay entitled ‘Tu, Maggiorani’ about how non-professional actors such as Maggiorani were sometimes used to execute one particular role and then cast aside.

Maggiorani made 16 movies, the last one a comedy entitled Ostia, directed by Sergio Citti and produced by Pier Paolo Pasolini, but none was particularly successful nor earned him much money.

He died at the San Giovanni Hospital in Rome in 1983 at the age of 73, having never regained the standing he enjoyed with Bicycle Thieves.  It is ironic that the film has recently been recognised as one of the greatest of all time.

The Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura adjoins
the Campo Verano cemetery

Travel tip:

Lamberto Maggiorani is buried at the Cimitero Comunale Monumentale Campo Verano, situated beside the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, in the Tiburtino area of Rome. It is the city's largest cemetery, with some five million internments. The name 'Verano' is thought to date back to the Roman era, when the area was known as Campo dei Verani.

The San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital is built on top of
Roman Ruins on Celio hill, south-east of the city centre

Travel tip:

The hospital complex San Giovanni Addolorata, where Maggiorani died, is on the Celio hill, an area of ancient Roman urban settlements. Under the existing buildings are archaeological remains, including the Villa of Domitian Lucilla, mother of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  Renovation work has also uncovered a villa belonging to the powerful Valerii family, great landowners, which contained historic mosaics preserved in perfect condition.

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Zanetta Farussi – actress

Venetian performer who gave birth to a legendary womaniser

Giacomo Casanova, whose mother was
 the actress Zanetta Farussi

Zanetta Farussi, the comedy actress who was the mother of the notorious adventurer, Casanova, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.

At the age of 17, Zanetta had married the actor Gaetano Casanova, who was 10 years older than her.

He had just returned to Venice after several years with a touring theatrical troupe, to take a job at the Teatro San Samuele.

Farussi’s parents opposed the marriage because they considered acting to be a disreputable profession.

But Farussi soon began working at Teatro San Samuele herself and the following year she gave birth to a son, Giacomo, who was to grow up to make the name Casanova synonymous with womanising and philandering.  Giacomo Casanova would later claim that his real father was Michele Grimani, who owned the Teatro San Samuele.

Zanetta and Gaetano accepted a theatrical engagement in London where Farussi gave birth to their second son, Francesco, who became a well-known painter.

They returned to Venice in 1728 and went on to have four more children. The youngest child was born two months after the death of his father. 

The Teatro San Samuele, where Farussi found work

The same year, Farussi met the playwright Carlo Goldoni in Verona and he wrote a short comedy for her called La Pupilla (The Female Ward), which was inspired by the jealous infatuation she had inspired in a famous actor and theatrical impresario of the day. It was presented as an interlude with his tragicomedy, Belisario.

In 1737 Farussi signed a long contract to appear in Italian comedies in Saxony.

The following year she made her debut in Pilnitz, near Dresden, on the occasion of the proxy wedding of Crown Princess Maria Amalia.

Farussi eventually visited Warsaw, where she presented two short theatrical pieces she had written herself.

When the Seven Years War started, the Saxon court suspended the activities of the Italian comedy troupe and the actors all retired and were granted an annual pension.

The playwright Carlo Goldoni

During the war, Farussi sought refuge in Prague but as soon as it was safe she returned to Dresden where she was to remain for the rest of her life. She was joined by one of her sons, Giovanni, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts there, and one of her daughters, Maria Maddalena, who married the court organist, Peter August.

Meanwhile, her eldest son, Giacomo Casanova, had graduated in law from the University of Padua. At various times during his life he worked as a clergyman, military officer, violinist, businessman and spy. Throughout his life it was a recurring pattern that he embarked on passionate affairs with women, ran out of money and was imprisoned for debt.

He was locked up for a time in the Doge’s Palace in Venice in terrible conditions, but he eventually escaped through the ceiling of his cell, broke back into the building through a window, walked out through the main entrance and made his escape in a gondola across the lagoon on his way to exile in France.

Farussi, who was known in theatrical circles as La Buranella, a reference to her family roots on the island of Burano, died in 1776 in Dresden.

Travel tip:

The church of San Samuele, just beyond the waterbus stop

Teatro San Samuele, where Farussi began her theatrical career, was an opera house and theatre at the Rio del Duca, between San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano. It was first opened in 1656 in Venice and the playwright, Carlo Goldoni, was the theatre’s director between 1737 and 1741. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1747 but then rebuilt and it remained a theatre until the building was demolished in 1894. San Samuele is in the San Marco sestiere and has a waterbus stop on the right bank of the Grand Canal before you reach the Rialto.

Goldoni's home was the beautiful Palazzo Centani

Travel tip:

The playwright, Carlo Goldoni, who wrote more than 250 comedies, was born in the beautiful Gothic Palazzo Centani in Venice. The palace, in Calle dei Nomboli in the San Polo district, is now a centre for theatrical studies and has a collection of theatrical memorabilia on display. It is open to the public every day except Wednesday.

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