Arturo Buzzi-Peccia was an Italian singing instructor and song composer whose career is very poorly documented.

He was born in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Italy and died in the U.S. His year of birth is sometimes given as 1856. He studied with Massenet and Saint-Saëns in Paris. Most of his songs were written in Italian. His most famous novelty song, La Cigarette du Paradis (Song of the Cigarette), was written in French. However, he was apparently quite a linguist, since he wrote tunes for some English songs. One of his most famous works is Lolita (Serenata Espagnol for voice and orchestra). In the 1933 film My Song Goes round the World, Joseph Schmidt sang "Mal d'amore". His opera Forza d'amore was conducted by Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...

 in 1897.

He came to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1898. By 1906, Buzzi-Peccia was living in New York. He came across a singer called Reba Feinsohn and was so impressed by Reba's singing that he offered to give her free lessons. She eventually became famous under the name Alma Gluck

Alma Gluck

Alma Gluck was a Romanian-born American soprano, one of the world's most famous female singers at the peak of her career .-Life and career:...

 (1882–1938) and as the wife of violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist Efrem Zimbalist

Efrem Zimbalist

Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. was one of the world's most prominent concert violinists, as well as a composer, teacher, conductor and a long-time director of the Curtis Institute of Music.-Early life:...

, mother of the actor Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series...

, and grandmother of actress Stephanie Zimbalist

Stephanie Zimbalist

Stephanie Zimbalist is an American actress best known for her role as Laura Holt on the NBC detective series Remington Steele.-Background:...

.

Other pupils of Buzzi-Peccia included the poet Dorothy Caruso, wife of Enrico Caruso (He set some of her verses to music, and Enrico sang them.), and Sophie Breslau.

Given his obscurity, Buzzi-Peccia's songs were widely recorded by such artists as Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli

Beniamino Gigli

Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...

, Carlo Bergonzi

Carlo Bergonzi

Carlo Bergonzi is an Italian operatic tenor. Although he performed and recorded some bel canto and verismo roles, he is above all associated with the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, including a large number of the composer's lesser-known works that he helped revive...

, Mario Lanza

Mario Lanza

right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....

, Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti

right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...

, Giuseppe Di Stefano

Giuseppe Di Stefano

Giuseppe Di Stefano was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli...

, and Roberto Alagna

Roberto Alagna

Roberto Alagna is a French-Italian tenor. He was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Early years:Alagna was born outside of the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian immigrants . As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets for tips...

.

A selection of his songs and piano works

• Fair Dreams. Song. (Les beaux reÌves. Axel, English version by P. C. Warren.)
• Ave Maria. Sacred Song
• Baciami. Song
• Black Magic. Song, poem by C. D. Isaacson
• Brezza marina. Barcarolla per pianoforte
• Capriccioso in re per pianoforte
• Mariolina: a love call (c 1934)
• Torna amore
• Mal d'amore
• Colombetta: Serenata veneziana
• La Cigarette du Paradis. Song of the Cigarette, English version by R. Lorfin.
• Colombetta. Columbine. Serenade Veneziana
• Come buy. (Words from Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale.")
• The Conscientious Deacon. (Words by V. Lindsay)
• The Conscientious Deacon. For Three-part Chorus of Men's Voices, etc.
• Two Encore Songs [No. 1.] My mother bids me spend my smiles. (T. Hood.)

  [No. 2.] Venus' runaway. (B. Jonson.)

• Eternal Light! Lux eterna. Song
• Lolita. Arranged for Male Voices by M. Andrews, etc.
• A Fly Song. Tragicomical encore ditty, etc. (Words by J. D. Wells.)
• Four French Songs (1915)
• Galanteries. Causeries pour piano
• Gloria. Duet for soprano and alto. (Words by M. C. Schuyler.)
• Glory to Love. - Inno all' amore. - (Song.) (1904)
• Going to War. (Song.)
• Good Night my Love. (Song.) Words and music by A. Buzzi-Peccia