Abramo Basevi was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 musicologist and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Basevi was born in Livorno

Livorno

Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...

. He began as a physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 in Florence (1858) but then devoted himself exclusively to music. His first attempts as a composer failed but in time he composed opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s (Romilda ed Ezzelino 1840; and Enrico Howard, 1847) and other music.

Basevi was editor of the musical journal L'Armonia. He founded the Beethoven Matinées (1859), which developed into the Società del Quartetto, a source of influence upon the musical life of Florence and Italy in general. Basevi offered an annual prize in this connection for the best string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

.

In 1863 Basevi founded the Concerti Popolari di Musica Classica. He was a frequent contributor to musical periodicals, and was the author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of Studio sulle Opere di G. Verdi (1859), Introduzione ad un Nuovo Sistema d'Armonia (1862), and Compendio della Storia della Musica (1866). He died in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

.

Sources

• Abramo Basevi article in Jewish Encyclopedia
• Studio sulle opere di Giuseppe Verdi, di A. Basevi from the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection