Guglielmo Quarenghi 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...

 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...

 and cellist. From 1839 to 1842 he studied with Vincenzo Merighi at the Milan Conservatory

Milan Conservatory

The Milan Conservatory is a college of music which 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. There were initially 18 boarders,...

. In 1850 he became principal cellist at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

, and in 1851 a professor at the conservatory. Along with Luigi Felice Rossi

Luigi Felice Rossi

Luigi Felice Rossi was an Italian composer, music teacher, musicologist, and music theorist. He mainly composed instrumental and sacred music. He did write one opera, Gli avventurieri , which premiered successfully in Turin in 1835...

 and Alberto Mazzucato

Alberto Mazzucato

Alberto Mazzucato was an Italian composer, music teacher, and writer.Mazzucato was born in Udine. Trained at the Padua Conservatory, he composed eight operas between 1834 and 1843, of which his most successful was Esmeralda...

, Quarenghi formed the Società di S Cecilia in 1860. In 1879 he succeeded Raimondo Boucheron

Raimondo Boucheron

Raimondo Boucheron was an Italian composer, chiefly of sacred music. During his life, he was known primarily for the song "Inno per le cinque giornate". Today he is remembered as one of the contributors to the Messa per Rossini, for which he wrote the Confutatis and Oro supplex of the Dies irae...

 as maestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral. He resigned two years later due to ill-health and died in 1882.

Quarenghi composed mostly music for the cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 including six caprices

Capriccio (music)

A capriccio or caprice , is a piece of music, usually fairly free in form and of a lively character...

 for solo cello, several original pieces and transcriptions for cello and piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, and some chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

. He did write one 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...

, Il dì di San Michele, which was produced in Milan in 1863. That same year he published a mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 and other church music

Church music

Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...

. His Metodo di violoncello (Milan, 1876) has an interesting preface, comparing the earliest bowed instruments, and their evolution, with folk instruments from many countries.

Sources

• Lynda MacGregor. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
  
  , edited by Stanley Sadie (1992), ISBN 0-333-73432-7 and ISBN 1-56159-228-5