Luigi Denza 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...

.
Denza was born at Castellammare di Stabia

Castellammare di Stabia

Castellammare di Stabia is a comune in the province of Naples, Campania region, southern Italy. It is situated on the Bay of Naples about 30 kilometers southeast of Naples, on the route to Sorrento.-History:...

, near Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. He studied music under Saverio Mercadante

Saverio Mercadante

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of...

 and Paolo Serrao

Paolo Serrao

Paolo Serrao was a distinguished and influential Italian teacher of musical theory and composition at Naples....

 at the Naples Conservatory. Later, he moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and became a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

 in 1898. Denza wrote an 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...

, Wallenstein, and hundreds of songs. The most popular of these was a collaboration with Peppino Turco

Peppino Turco

Giuseppe “Peppino” Turco was an Italian songwriter.Turco was born in Naples. Initially he was a renowned journalist and poet, collaborating with the satirical newspaper Capitan Fracassa in Rome and various Neapolitan periodicals...

, the Neapolitan song Funiculì, Funiculà

Funiculì, Funiculà

"Funiculì, Funiculà" is a famous Neapolitan song written by Italian journalist Peppino Turco and set to music by Italian composer Luigi Denza in 1880. It was composed to commemorate the opening of the first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius. The 1880 cable car was later destroyed by the...

, about the Vesuvius funicular

Funicular

A funicular, also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.-Operation:The basic principle of funicular...

. Other songs such as "Luna fedel", "Occhi di fata", and "Se" have been sung by 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...

, Carlo Bergonzi, Enrico Caruso and Ronan Tynan

Ronan Tynan

Ronan Tynan is a singer in the classical Irish style. He is most famous for his renditions of "God Bless America" at Yankee Stadium during important New York Yankees games, such as Opening Day, nationally-televised games, the last game at the old Yankee Stadium, and playoff games...

.

Six years after Funiculì, Funiculà was composed, German composer Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

heard the song while on a tour of Italy. Thinking that it was a traditional Italian folk song, he later incorporated it into his Aus Italien symphony. To his great embarrassment, Strauss realised his mistake when an angry Denza filed a lawsuit against him. Denza won the lawsuit, and Strauss was forced to pay him a royalty fee every time the Aus Italien was performed in public.

Luigi Denza died in 1922 in London.

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