A. W. K.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] B. Padua, Feb. 24, 1842, pupil of the Milan Conservatory, but cosmopolitan in his influences, having visited Paris, Germany (where he was interested in Wagner) and Poland, his mother's home. Two cantatas, 'The Fourth of June' (1860) and Le sorelle d'Italia (1862), were his first published efforts.
[74] B. Livorno, Dec. 7, 1863, pupil of Ponchielli and Saladino in Milan Conservatory.
[75] Born in Venice Jan. 12, 1876, he studied with Rheinberger in Munich in 1893-95, though in the main he is self-taught.
CHAPTER XII
THE RENAISSANCE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN ITALY
Martucci and Sgambati—The symphonic composers: Zandonai, de Sabbata, Alfano, Marinuzzi, Sinigaglia, Mancinelli, Floridia; the piano and violin composers: Franco da Venezia, Paolo Frontini, Mario Tarenghi; Rosario Scalero, Leone Sinigaglia; composers for the organ—The song writers: art songs; ballads—Modern Spanish composers.
One is tempted to halt in the midst of an investigation of Italy's instrumental music to note the unusual progress which this nation of opera-lovers has made in arriving at a point where absolute music has a place in its æsthetic life. And only because Italy, from Boccherini to Sgambati, ignored the development of music apart from that of the stage is it necessary to express wonderment at this worthy advance. A country that could produce a Palestrina, a Frescobaldi and a Corelli, in the days when the art of music was still in its youth, found that it was chiefly interested in the wedding—or attempted wedding—of words and music. There were, to be sure, at all times men who wrote what they thought symphonies of merit, men for the most part who had little to say. Some of them were unable to work with the opera-form as it existed. Their music was, however, the kind that never gets beyond the borders of its own country, if it succeeds in passing the city in which it is first heard. The opera-composers were much too busy getting ready an aria for Signorina Batti or Signor Lodi to study the symphonic form. So Italy went its merry way, without symphony, without chamber music, without the art-song, in fact without everything that belongs to the nobler kind, from the days of Boccherini, of the much venerated Luigi Cherubini to the appearance in 1843 of the late Giovanni Sgambati.
That period covered, then, from 1770, when Boccherini flourished, till 1850. The reasons for the exclusive interest in opera must be sought in the conditions obtaining in Rome, Milan, Florence, Genoa, Naples and other leading cities. Opera-composers wrote music that the orchestras could manage with little or no trouble; symphonic music, naturally more difficult of execution, was, to begin with, beyond the ability of most of these orchestras. In fact it is only recently that the Italian orchestras have been brought to a real point of efficiency. So Italy went on, still holding high its head as a musical nation—in its own estimation, of course. To make a name as a musician one had to compose a successful opera. A fine string quartet meant nothing to the public, for it was a public that did not know what chamber-music was. There were, to be sure, occasional performances, but they were sporadic, and they had no significance for the people. After all it is not strange that this occurred. Other nations have experienced similar stages in their development in other arts. Italy went through it in music. To-day she has found herself and she is rapidly doing everything in her power to atone for her shortcomings during those many years when opera, in the opinion of her people, was synonymous with music.