Stanislao Gastaldon
Encyclopedia
Martino Stanislao Luigi Gastaldon (April 8, 1861March 6, 1939) was an Italian composer, primarily of salon songs
for solo voice and piano. However, he also composed instrumental music, two choral works, and four opera
s. Today, he is remembered almost exclusively for his 1881 song "Musica proibita" ("Forbidden Music"), still one of the most popular pieces of music in Italy. Gastaldon also wrote the lyrics for some of his songs, including "Musica proibita", under the pseudonym Flick-Flock. He was born in Turin
and after a peripatetic childhood studied music there and in Florence
. By 1900, he had settled permanently in Florence, where he died at the age of 77. In his later years he also worked as a voice teacher, music critic, and art dealer.
on April 8, 1861 to Luigi Gastaldon and Luigia Grazioli. His father was an engineer from Lerino, a village near Torri di Quartesolo
in the Veneto
region of Italy. His mother was a Roman noblewoman who had married a wealthy land owner, Count Bernardo Genardini, at the age of 16. She met Luigi Gastaldon in 1854 when she was 23 and shortly thereafter abandoned her husband and four children to live with him. The family moved from one Italian city to another during Gastaldon's childhood and early youth while his father worked on a series of engineering projects. Part of his childhood was spent in San Vito Chietino
in the Abruzzo
region, where a street is now named for him and where his younger brother Guglielmo was born in 1864.
Gastaldon studied music with the Turinese composer Antonio Creonti and with Torquato Meliani, an organist at the Florence Cathedral, as well as studying literature at the University of Florence
. He began composing songs at the age of 17, sometimes writing the lyrics himself under the pseudonym of "Flick-Flock". Although it is not known for sure why Gastaldon chose "Flick-Flock", Italian musicologist Maria Scaccetti suggests that it probably derived from the popular ballet, Flick und Flock by Peter Ludwig Hertel, which had been performed at La Scala
in 1861. Music from the ballet arranged as a military march became the official fanfare
of the 12th Regiment of the Bersaglieri
corps, which had been based in Turin. Gastaldon was only 20 when the Florentine firm Venturini published his song "Musica proibita", which made his name as a composer and achieved an enduring popularity. Its success would also provide an entry to the most important salons
in Italy, where many of his early songs were first performed. His musical fame preceded him when Gastaldon did his obligatory year of military service in 1883. He was assigned to be one of the "professors" of the 24th Infantry Regiment band.
When his military service ended, Gastaldon returned to Rome, where his parents were living at the time. Over the next four years he continued composing songs and short pieces of instrumental music and started work on his first opera, Fatma. However, in 1888, when the music publisher Sonzogno announced a competition for one-act operas, Gastaldon decided to enter with Mala Pasqua!
, a setting of Giovanni Verga
's popular short story (and later play), Cavalleria rusticana. Another young composer, Pietro Mascagni
, entered the same contest with his opera Cavalleria rusticana
, also based on Verga's story. Gastaldon withdrew his work early in the competition when he received an offer from Sonzogno's rival, Ricordi
, to publish it and arrange a premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. He expanded the opera to three acts, and Mala Pasqua! premiered on April 9, 1890 to modest success. Mascagni's opera eventually won the competition and premiered a month later on May 17 at the same theatre. Mascagni's work was an enormous success and completely eclipsed Gastaldon's. Nevertheless, he continued writing operas over the years, producing two one-act operas, Pater (1894) and Stellina (1905) and a three-act comic opera, Il Reuccio di Caprilana (1915). Like Mala Pasqua!, they premiered to moderate success but dropped almost immediately from the repertorire.
After the premiere of Mala Pasqua! in 1890, Gastaldon lived in Orvieto
for a time, and then settled in Florence, where he was to spend the rest of his life. There, in addition to composing, he taught singing and worked as a music critic for the Florentine paper Nuovo Giornale, as well as writing a column "Scattola Armonica" ("Music Box") for the children's periodical Il giornalino della Domenica
. His associates in Florence were a circle of free-thinking artists and literary figures who gathered at the Gambrinus Halle café in the Piazza Vittorio Emanauele (now called the Piazza della Repubblica). Gastaldon and his friends were out of sympathy with the rise of Italian Fascism
in the 1920s, and he became increasingly marginalised. Finding it difficult to make a living solely from his music, in the final years of his life he also worked as an art dealer, buying and selling paintings by his friends in the Gambrinus Halle. He never married and lived alone in his house on Via Montanara. On March 6, 1939, Gastaldon suffered a heart attack while walking across the Piazza Vittorio Emmauele and died the same day at the age of 77. He is buried in the Misericordia di Antella Cemetery near Florence.
in Milan. Although several biographical entries, including that in Enciclopedia della musica published by Rizzoli-Ricordi, say that he composed more than 300 songs, Scaccetti suggests that while Gastaldon was prolific, the actual number may be considerably less than this. The work he is almost exclusively remembered for today is his song "Musica proibita".
A common misconception about the song's origin is that it is an aria from Gastaldon's opera, Mala Pasqua!
, and the only surviving piece from the work. In fact, it is neither. It was published as a salon song for solo soprano
and piano in 1881, nine years before Mala Pasqua! premiered. The Mala Pasqua! score (and the libretto
) were published by Ricordi
in 1890 and copies are held in several libraries in the United States and Europe. Dedicated to the Italian baritone
Felice Giachetti, "Musica proibita" was Gastaldon's second published work, and the first of six songs for which he also wrote the lyrics using the pseudonym "Flick-Flock". Its success was enormous. Ten years later, a journalist writing in the Gazzetta musicale di Milano recalled how the song soon became a way for timid young lovers all over Italy to express their affection in words that were both uninhibited and emotionally moving. He went on:
Shortly after its publication in Italy, "Musica proibita" was published in English as "Unspoken Words" (with a text by D'Arcy Jaxone) and in French as "La chanson défendue". It has since been arranged for every voice type
as well as transcribed for flute and violin, violin solo, piano solo, guitar, mandolin
, accordion
, military band, and solo voice and orchestra. It was recorded in several different versions on early gramophone
and cylinder
recordings starting in 1900, and although the words express the thoughts of a young girl, "Musica proibita" became a staple of the tenor
concert repertoire (sometimes with the text adjusted). Among the tenors who have recorded it over the years are Enrico Caruso in 1917, Beniamino Gigli
in 1933, Mario Lanza
in 1952 and 1959, Giuseppe di Stefano
in 1961, Luciano Pavarotti
in 1984, José Carreras
(who also sang it in several Three Tenors concerts) in 1979 and 1993, and Andrea Bocelli
in 2002. "Musica proibita" was also the inspiration, title, and theme song of a 1943 Italian film directed by Carlo Campogalliani and starring Tito Gobbi
, a tortuous story of a noblewoman who opposes the marriage of her niece to the son of a famous baritone who had once been the noblewoman's "forbidden love".
. A variation on the theme came in 1885 with Gastaldon's "Musica non probita!" (Music not forbidden!) composed to a text by the theatre critic and poet Luigi Bevacqua Lombardo. Two of Gastaldon's other early songs, "Amor non è peccato" (Love is not a sin) and "Fiori di sposa" (Bridal flowers) were set to texts by a poet identified only as "Faustina". The first of these was dedicated to Leonora Genina Mancini, daughter of the Italian statesman Pasquale Stanislao Mancini
and the poet Laura Beatrice Mancini
. Leonora's younger sister Flora ran a famous musical salon, and both sisters wrote poems that had been set by Gastaldon's contemporaries.
Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana, who wrote the libretto for Gastaldon's opera Mala Pasqua!, also wrote the text for his song "Perché tacete" (Why are you silent?). Other poets whose texts were set by Gastaldon included Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
, Olindo Guerrini
(under the pseudonym Lorenzo Stecchetti), Emilio Praga, Armando Perotti, Annie Vivanti, Fausto Salvatori, and Domenico Milelli (under the pseudonym Conte di Lara). Of all his songs, Gastaldon's favourite was reportedly "Mamma", dedicated to the memory of his mother, with lyrics by the poet and playwright Giovanni Arrighi. It was recorded by Renato Zanelli
for the Victor Talking Machine Company
in 1921. In a departure from his usual genre of songs for solo voice and piano, Gastaldon also wrote two choral pieces, "Viva il Re" and "Inno della Dante Alighieri". The patriotic anthem "Viva il Re" (Long Live the King) with text by Giosuè Carducci
was published by Ricordi 1915. "Inno della Dante Alighieri" with text by Augusto Franchetti was written as an anthem for the Dante Alighieri Society. It was first performed on September 28, 1902 in the Piazza del Campo
in Siena
for the XIII Congress of the Società Dante Alighieri and published the following year by the Florentine firm of Bemporad & Figlio.
. According to The Monthly Musical Record of 1887, it had been accepted for performance at La Scala
and in 1888, the French periodical Le Ménestrel reported that it was nearly finished. However, it was never performed and does not appear to have been published. In 1891, after the premiere of Mala Pasqua!, he began work on what was to have been a three-act comedy loosely based on the Alexandre Dumas novel Twenty Years After
. Initially called Rosa Minchon and then Mazzarinata, it too was never performed and was probably never finished. Although not an opera, and lasting only seven minutes, Gastaldon's Il sonetto di Dante, a setting of Dante
's sonnet "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare", was written to be performed on stage by a tenor
in the role of Dante, surrounded by scenery depicting 14th century Florence. According to the Revue Musicale de Lyon, it had little success despite the talent of Giuseppe Taccani, who sang the piece at its premiere.
Chronological list of performed stage works
Salon music
Salon music was a popular music genre in Europe during the 19th century. It was usually written for solo piano in the romantic style, and often performed by the composer at events known as "Salons". Salon compositions are usually fairly short and often focus on virtuoso pianistic display or...
for solo voice and piano. However, he also composed instrumental music, two choral works, and four 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. Today, he is remembered almost exclusively for his 1881 song "Musica proibita" ("Forbidden Music"), still one of the most popular pieces of music in Italy. Gastaldon also wrote the lyrics for some of his songs, including "Musica proibita", under the pseudonym Flick-Flock. He was born in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and after a peripatetic childhood studied music there and 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....
. By 1900, he had settled permanently in Florence, where he died at the age of 77. In his later years he also worked as a voice teacher, music critic, and art dealer.
Life and career
Gastaldon was born in TurinTurin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
on April 8, 1861 to Luigi Gastaldon and Luigia Grazioli. His father was an engineer from Lerino, a village near Torri di Quartesolo
Torri di Quartesolo
Torri di Quartesolo is a town and comune in the province of Vicenza, Veneto, Italy.-Geography:It is north of E70 and west of A31, and has its own highway junction called "Vicenza Est", off the Autostrada A4.-Notable residents:...
in the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
region of Italy. His mother was a Roman noblewoman who had married a wealthy land owner, Count Bernardo Genardini, at the age of 16. She met Luigi Gastaldon in 1854 when she was 23 and shortly thereafter abandoned her husband and four children to live with him. The family moved from one Italian city to another during Gastaldon's childhood and early youth while his father worked on a series of engineering projects. Part of his childhood was spent in San Vito Chietino
San Vito Chietino
San Vito Chietino is a town and comune in the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region of central Italy.-Geography:The town is bordered by Frisa, Lanciano, Ortona, Rocca San Giovanni, Treglio and Fossacesia.-Economy:...
in the Abruzzo
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...
region, where a street is now named for him and where his younger brother Guglielmo was born in 1864.
Gastaldon studied music with the Turinese composer Antonio Creonti and with Torquato Meliani, an organist at the Florence Cathedral, as well as studying literature at the University of Florence
University of Florence
The University of Florence is a higher study institute in Florence, central Italy. One of the largest and oldest universities in the country, it consists of 12 faculties...
. He began composing songs at the age of 17, sometimes writing the lyrics himself under the pseudonym of "Flick-Flock". Although it is not known for sure why Gastaldon chose "Flick-Flock", Italian musicologist Maria Scaccetti suggests that it probably derived from the popular ballet, Flick und Flock by Peter Ludwig Hertel, which had been performed 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...
in 1861. Music from the ballet arranged as a military march became the official fanfare
Fanfare
A Fanfare is a relatively short piece of music that is typically played by trumpets and other brass instruments often accompanied by percussion...
of the 12th Regiment of the Bersaglieri
Bersaglieri
The Bersaglieri are a corps of the Italian Army originally created by General Alessandro La Marmora on 18 June 1836 to serve in the Piedmontese Army, later to become the Royal Italian Army...
corps, which had been based in Turin. Gastaldon was only 20 when the Florentine firm Venturini published his song "Musica proibita", which made his name as a composer and achieved an enduring popularity. Its success would also provide an entry to the most important salons
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
in Italy, where many of his early songs were first performed. His musical fame preceded him when Gastaldon did his obligatory year of military service in 1883. He was assigned to be one of the "professors" of the 24th Infantry Regiment band.
When his military service ended, Gastaldon returned to Rome, where his parents were living at the time. Over the next four years he continued composing songs and short pieces of instrumental music and started work on his first opera, Fatma. However, in 1888, when the music publisher Sonzogno announced a competition for one-act operas, Gastaldon decided to enter with Mala Pasqua!
Mala Pasqua!
Mala Pasqua! is an opera in three acts composed by Stanislao Gastaldon to a libretto by Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana. The libretto is based on Giovanni Verga's play, Cavalleria rusticana which Verga had adapted from his short story of the same name...
, a setting of Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Carmelo Verga was an Italian realist writer, best known for his depictions of life in Sicily, and especially for the short story "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the novel I Malavoglia .-Life and career:The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro,...
's popular short story (and later play), Cavalleria rusticana. Another young composer, Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
, entered the same contest with his opera Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, also based on Verga's story. Gastaldon withdrew his work early in the competition when he received an offer from Sonzogno's rival, Ricordi
Casa Ricordi
Casa Ricordi is a classical music publishing company founded in 1808 as G. Ricordi & Co. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi in Milan, Italy...
, to publish it and arrange a premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. He expanded the opera to three acts, and Mala Pasqua! premiered on April 9, 1890 to modest success. Mascagni's opera eventually won the competition and premiered a month later on May 17 at the same theatre. Mascagni's work was an enormous success and completely eclipsed Gastaldon's. Nevertheless, he continued writing operas over the years, producing two one-act operas, Pater (1894) and Stellina (1905) and a three-act comic opera, Il Reuccio di Caprilana (1915). Like Mala Pasqua!, they premiered to moderate success but dropped almost immediately from the repertorire.
After the premiere of Mala Pasqua! in 1890, Gastaldon lived in Orvieto
Orvieto
Orvieto is a city and comune in Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff...
for a time, and then settled in Florence, where he was to spend the rest of his life. There, in addition to composing, he taught singing and worked as a music critic for the Florentine paper Nuovo Giornale, as well as writing a column "Scattola Armonica" ("Music Box") for the children's periodical Il giornalino della Domenica
Il giornalino della Domenica
Il giornalino della Domenica was ‘the prototype of the modern periodical for children in Italy’. Founded in 1906 in Florence by ‘Vamba’, a pseudonym of the journalist Luigi Bertelli , it adopted an avant-garde style and a tone markedly patriotic and irredentist., Publication was initially...
. His associates in Florence were a circle of free-thinking artists and literary figures who gathered at the Gambrinus Halle café in the Piazza Vittorio Emanauele (now called the Piazza della Repubblica). Gastaldon and his friends were out of sympathy with the rise of Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
in the 1920s, and he became increasingly marginalised. Finding it difficult to make a living solely from his music, in the final years of his life he also worked as an art dealer, buying and selling paintings by his friends in the Gambrinus Halle. He never married and lived alone in his house on Via Montanara. On March 6, 1939, Gastaldon suffered a heart attack while walking across the Piazza Vittorio Emmauele and died the same day at the age of 77. He is buried in the Misericordia di Antella Cemetery near Florence.
Works
During his lifetime, the vast majority of Gastaldon's works were published by two firms, Genasio Venturini in Florence (absorbed by Carisch & Jänichen in 1905) and RicordiCasa Ricordi
Casa Ricordi is a classical music publishing company founded in 1808 as G. Ricordi & Co. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi in Milan, Italy...
in Milan. Although several biographical entries, including that in Enciclopedia della musica published by Rizzoli-Ricordi, say that he composed more than 300 songs, Scaccetti suggests that while Gastaldon was prolific, the actual number may be considerably less than this. The work he is almost exclusively remembered for today is his song "Musica proibita".
"Musica proibita"
"Musica proibita" (Forbidden Music) is a song within a song. A young woman tells of a handsome young man ("un bel garzone") who sings a love song beneath her balcony every night. She longs to sing it herself to re-live the thrill she felt, but her mother has forbidden her. Knowing that her mother has left the house, she sings it, and then recalling the last time she heard him, she sings it again even more intensely. The young man's song begins:Vorrei baciare i tuoi capelli neri,
Le labbra tue e gli occhi tuoi severi...
(I want to kiss your raven hair,
Your lips and your solemn eyes...)
A common misconception about the song's origin is that it is an aria from Gastaldon's opera, Mala Pasqua!
Mala Pasqua!
Mala Pasqua! is an opera in three acts composed by Stanislao Gastaldon to a libretto by Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana. The libretto is based on Giovanni Verga's play, Cavalleria rusticana which Verga had adapted from his short story of the same name...
, and the only surviving piece from the work. In fact, it is neither. It was published as a salon song for solo soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and piano in 1881, nine years before Mala Pasqua! premiered. The Mala Pasqua! score (and the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
) were published by Ricordi
Casa Ricordi
Casa Ricordi is a classical music publishing company founded in 1808 as G. Ricordi & Co. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi in Milan, Italy...
in 1890 and copies are held in several libraries in the United States and Europe. Dedicated to the Italian baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
Felice Giachetti, "Musica proibita" was Gastaldon's second published work, and the first of six songs for which he also wrote the lyrics using the pseudonym "Flick-Flock". Its success was enormous. Ten years later, a journalist writing in the Gazzetta musicale di Milano recalled how the song soon became a way for timid young lovers all over Italy to express their affection in words that were both uninhibited and emotionally moving. He went on:
What an invasion, what an inundation, how deafening it was back then! In every house, in every street, in every café, everyone wanted to kiss their raven hair, in every style and in every possible way of singing out of tune.
Shortly after its publication in Italy, "Musica proibita" was published in English as "Unspoken Words" (with a text by D'Arcy Jaxone) and in French as "La chanson défendue". It has since been arranged for every voice type
Voice type
A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types...
as well as transcribed for flute and violin, violin solo, piano solo, guitar, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
, accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, military band, and solo voice and orchestra. It was recorded in several different versions on early gramophone
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
and cylinder
Phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was...
recordings starting in 1900, and although the words express the thoughts of a young girl, "Musica proibita" became a staple of the tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
concert repertoire (sometimes with the text adjusted). Among the tenors who have recorded it over the years are Enrico Caruso in 1917, 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...
in 1933, 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....
in 1952 and 1959, 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...
in 1961, 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...
in 1984, José Carreras
José Carreras
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
(who also sang it in several Three Tenors concerts) in 1979 and 1993, and Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli, is an Italian tenor, multi-instrumentalist and classical crossover artist. Born with poor eyesight, he became blind at the age of twelve following a soccer accident....
in 2002. "Musica proibita" was also the inspiration, title, and theme song of a 1943 Italian film directed by Carlo Campogalliani and starring Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.-Biography:Tito Gobbi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied law at the University of Padua before he trained as a singer. Giulio Crimi, a well-known Italian tenor of a previous generation, was Gobbi's teacher in Rome...
, a tortuous story of a noblewoman who opposes the marriage of her niece to the son of a famous baritone who had once been the noblewoman's "forbidden love".
Other songs
In 1882, Gastaldon wrote "Ti vorrei rapire" (I want to carry you away), a sequel to "Musica proibita" which is meant to be sung by the young man referred to in the original song. Like "Musica probita", the text was by "Flick-Flock". It had considerable success in its day and was recorded in 1910 by the Italian baritone Taurino Parvis for Columbia RecordsColumbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. A variation on the theme came in 1885 with Gastaldon's "Musica non probita!" (Music not forbidden!) composed to a text by the theatre critic and poet Luigi Bevacqua Lombardo. Two of Gastaldon's other early songs, "Amor non è peccato" (Love is not a sin) and "Fiori di sposa" (Bridal flowers) were set to texts by a poet identified only as "Faustina". The first of these was dedicated to Leonora Genina Mancini, daughter of the Italian statesman Pasquale Stanislao Mancini
Pasquale Stanislao Mancini
Pasquale Stanislao Mancini was an Italian jurist and statesman.-Biography:Mancini was born in Castel Baronia, in the province of Avellino...
and the poet Laura Beatrice Mancini
Laura Beatrice Mancini
Laura Beatrice Mancini , born Laura Beatrice Oliva, was an Italian poet.Laura Oliva was born in Naples, and in 1840 married Italian jurist and statesman Pasquale Stanislao Mancini. She wrote a variety of poetry, and ran a literary salon for liberal-minded Neapolitans from the 1840s...
. Leonora's younger sister Flora ran a famous musical salon, and both sisters wrote poems that had been set by Gastaldon's contemporaries.
Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana, who wrote the libretto for Gastaldon's opera Mala Pasqua!, also wrote the text for his song "Perché tacete" (Why are you silent?). Other poets whose texts were set by Gastaldon included Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Domínguez Bastida, better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, was a Spanish post-romanticist writer of poetry and short stories, now considered one of the most important figures in Spanish literature. He adopted the alias of Bécquer as his brother Valeriano Bécquer, a painter, had...
, Olindo Guerrini
Olindo Guerrini
Olindo Guerrini was an Italian poet who also published under the pseudonyms Lorenzo Stecchetti and Argia Sbolenfi....
(under the pseudonym Lorenzo Stecchetti), Emilio Praga, Armando Perotti, Annie Vivanti, Fausto Salvatori, and Domenico Milelli (under the pseudonym Conte di Lara). Of all his songs, Gastaldon's favourite was reportedly "Mamma", dedicated to the memory of his mother, with lyrics by the poet and playwright Giovanni Arrighi. It was recorded by Renato Zanelli
Renato Zanelli
Renato Zanelli was a Chilean operatic baritone and later tenor, particularly associated with heroic Italian and German roles, notably Verdi's Otello.-Life and career:...
for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
in 1921. In a departure from his usual genre of songs for solo voice and piano, Gastaldon also wrote two choral pieces, "Viva il Re" and "Inno della Dante Alighieri". The patriotic anthem "Viva il Re" (Long Live the King) with text by Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
was published by Ricordi 1915. "Inno della Dante Alighieri" with text by Augusto Franchetti was written as an anthem for the Dante Alighieri Society. It was first performed on September 28, 1902 in the Piazza del Campo
Piazza del Campo
Piazza del Campo is the principal public space of the historic center of Siena, Tuscany, Italy and is one of Europe's greatest medieval squares. It is renowned worldwide for its beauty and architectural integrity. The Palazzo Pubblico and its Torre del Mangia, as well as various palazzi signorili...
in Siena
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
for the XIII Congress of the Società Dante Alighieri and published the following year by the Florentine firm of Bemporad & Figlio.
Stage works
Although, Mala Pasqua was the first of Gastaldon's operas to be performed, he had previously composed Fatma, an opera-ballet in four acts and a prologue with a libretto by Marco PragaMarco Praga
Marco Praga born in Milan on June 20, 1862; died on January 31, 1929) was an Italian playwright popular in his era. His two most successful plays were La vergini and La moglie ideale , which reportedly contained one of Eleonora Duse great roles...
. According to The Monthly Musical Record of 1887, it had been accepted for performance 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 1888, the French periodical Le Ménestrel reported that it was nearly finished. However, it was never performed and does not appear to have been published. In 1891, after the premiere of Mala Pasqua!, he began work on what was to have been a three-act comedy loosely based on the Alexandre Dumas novel Twenty Years After
Twenty Years After
Twenty Years After is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père, first serialized from January to August, 1845. A book of the D'Artagnan Romances, it is a sequel to The Three Musketeers and precedes The Vicomte de Bragelonne .The novel follows events in France during La Fronde, during the childhood reign...
. Initially called Rosa Minchon and then Mazzarinata, it too was never performed and was probably never finished. Although not an opera, and lasting only seven minutes, Gastaldon's Il sonetto di Dante, a setting of Dante
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
's sonnet "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare", was written to be performed on stage by a tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
in the role of Dante, surrounded by scenery depicting 14th century Florence. According to the Revue Musicale de Lyon, it had little success despite the talent of Giuseppe Taccani, who sang the piece at its premiere.
Chronological list of performed stage works
- Mala Pasqua!Mala Pasqua!Mala Pasqua! is an opera in three acts composed by Stanislao Gastaldon to a libretto by Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana. The libretto is based on Giovanni Verga's play, Cavalleria rusticana which Verga had adapted from his short story of the same name...
– opera in three acts; libretto by Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana based on VergaGiovanni VergaGiovanni Carmelo Verga was an Italian realist writer, best known for his depictions of life in Sicily, and especially for the short story "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the novel I Malavoglia .-Life and career:The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro,...
's short story, "Cavalleria rusticana"; premiered April 9, 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome - Pater – opera in one act; libretto by Vittorio Bianchi based on François CoppéeFrançois CoppéeFrançois Edouard Joachim Coppée was a French poet and novelist.-Biography:He was born in Paris to a civil servant. After attending the Lycée Saint-Louis he became a clerk in the ministry of war, and won public favour as a poet of the Parnassian school. His first printed verses date from 1864...
's play of the same name; premiered April 15, 1894 at the Teatro Manzoni in Milan - Stellina – opera in one act; libretto by Vittorio Bianchi; published 1896, premiered March 25, 1905 in a double bill with Pater at the Teatro Niccolini in Florence
- Il sonetto di Dante – described as a visione scenica; text by Dante AlighieriDante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
from La Vita NuovaLa Vita NuovaLa Vita Nuova is a medieval text written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse...
, "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare"; premiered November 17, 1906 at the Politeama Genovese in Genoa - Il Reuccio di Caprilana – operettaOperettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
in three acts; libretto by Félicien ChampsaurFélicien ChampsaurFélicien Champsaur was a French novelist and journalist.Champsaur was born at Turriers, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. His first novel was the roman á clef Dinah Samuel , said to present portraits of poet Arthur Rimbaud and actress Sarah Bernhardt...
; premiered April 4, 1914 at the Teatro Balbo in Turin
Sources
- Almanacco Italiano (1903). "Musica: S. Gastaldon". Roberto Bemporad & Figlio, p. 53
- American Record GuideAmerican Record GuideThe American Record Guide is a classical music magazine. It has reviewed classical music recordings since 1935.Since 1992, with the incorporation of the Musical America editorial functions into ARG, it started covering concerts, musicians, ensembles and orchestras in the US.The magazine prides...
(1991). "Review: Italian baritones of the Acoustic era (Bongiovanni GB1043)". Volume 54, Issues 1-3, p. 158 - Chiti, Roberto and Lancia, Enrico (2005). "Musica Proibita", Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film, Volume 1. Gremese Editore, pp. 229–230. ISBN 8884403510
- Gramophone (February 1934). "Review: Beniamino Gigli – Forbidden Music (Gastaldon) HMV DB1385", p. 37
- Guerrini, Silvano (2007). Storia del Cimitero Misericordia di Antella. Venerabile Confraternita della Misericordia di Antella
- La nuova fioritura (1915). "Fausto Villa". Renzo Streglio & Co., p. 105
- Le Ménestrel (May 6, 1888). "Nouvelles Diverses: Étranger". Heugel, pp. 148–150
- Limongi, Riccardo (1999). Sensi unici ovvero la ghirlanda. Guida Editori. ISBN 8871882040
- Revue Musicale de Lyon (December 16, 1906). "Le Dante en musique" pp. 315–316
- Rubboli, Daniele (March 1989). "Vorrei baciare i tuoi capelli neri...", L'Opera, pp. 70–71
- Sartori, Claudio, ed. (1971). "Gastaldon, Stanislao" in Enciclopedia della musica, Volume 3. Rizzoli-Ricordi, p. 94
- Sbrocchi, Vito (April 18, 2003). "Il compositore Gastaldon, celebre alla fine dell'Ottocento, trascorse l'infanzia a San Vito". Il TempoIl TempoIl Tempo is a daily Italian newspaper. It was founded in Rome, Italy by Renato Angiolillo in 1944 and currently publishes the Rome edition and other five local editions ....
- Scaccetti, Maria Paola (2002). "'La Musica Proibita' di Stanislao Gastaldon" in La romanza italiana da salotto, Francesco Sanvitale (ed.). EDT srl. ISBN 8870636151
- The Monthly Musical Record (1887). Volume 17. Augener & Co, p. 70
External links
("Musica proibita" and "Amor non è peccato")- Italian text and English translation of "Musica proibita" on The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Page. (Note that it contains at least one typographical error in the Italian text and the English translation is not completely idiomatic.)
- Audio file of Enrico Caruso singing "Musica proibita" (1917) on the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Stanislao Gastaldon on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...