Famous Violinists from Italy
- Alessandro Ignazio Marcello (Italian: [marˈtʃɛllo]; 1 February 1673 – 19 June 1747 in Venice) was an Italian nobleman and composer.
- Birthplace: Venice, Scorzè, Italy
- Alessandro Rolla (Italian pronunciation: [alesˈsandro ˈrɔlla]; 22 April 1757 – 15 September 1841) was an Italian viola and violin virtuoso, composer, conductor and teacher. His son, Antonio Rolla, was also a violin virtuoso and composer. His fame now rests mainly as "teacher of the great Paganini", yet his role was very important in the development of violin and viola technique. Some of the technical innovations that Paganini later used largely, such as left-hand pizzicato, chromatic ascending and descending scales, the use of very high positions on violin and viola, octave passages, were first introduced by Rolla.
- Birthplace: Pavia, Italy
- Angelo Lavagnino built up his entertainment career by putting his musical skills to use in the world of Hollywood. Early in his entertainment career, Lavagnino's music was featured in films like the Gina Lollobrigida dramatic adaptation "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1957) and the Vittorio De Sica comedic adaptation "The Miller's Wife" (1957). His music was also used in the romance "The Wind Cannot Read" (1958) with Dirk Bogarde, the sci-fi picture "Gorgo" (1961) with Bill Travers and the Anthony Quinn adaptation "The Savage Innocents" (1961). His work was also in "Agent 8 3/4" (1965). Later in his career, Lavagnino worked on "Beatrice Cenci" (1969). Lavagnino passed away in August 1987 at the age of 78.
- Birthplace: Genoa, Liguria, Italy
- Antonio Bazzini (11 March 1818 – 10 February 1897) was an Italian violinist, composer and teacher. As a composer his most enduring work is his chamber music which has earned him a central place in the Italian instrumental renaissance of the 19th century. However his success as a composer was overshadowed by his reputation as one of the finest concert violinists of the nineteenth century. He also contributed to a portion of Messa per Rossini, specifically the first section of II. Sequentia, Dies Irae.
- Birthplace: Brescia, Italy
- Giuseppe Antonio Capuzzi (also Capucci; 1 August 1755 – 28 March 1818) was an Italian violinist and composer. Although popular in his day, most of his music is now forgotten. The most commonly performed piece today is his concerto for double bass. The concerto was found in the British Museum, and was dedicated to Kavalier Marcantonio Montenigo, who is assumed to have performed on that instrument. An arrangement of the second (andante) and third (rondo) movements of the concerto is also performed on tuba, euphonium, and trombone. In addition Philip Catelinet arranged all three movements of the concerto for concert band and symphony orchestra. He performed it several times during his tenure at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. His students also performed it. The parts may be obtained from Barry Catelinet. Several of Capuzzi's string quintets are also performed by chamber groups.
- Birthplace: Brescia, Italy
- Antonio Lolli (c. 1725 – 10 August 1802) was an Italian violinist and composer.
- Birthplace: Bergamo, Italy
- Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx (also Balthasar de Beaujoyeux), originally Baldassare de Belgiojoso (died c. 1587 in Paris) was an Italian violinist, composer, and choreographer.
- Biagio Marini (5 February 1594 – 20 March 1663) was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer in the first half of the seventeenth century. Marini was born in Brescia. He may have studied with his uncle Giacinto Bondioli. His works were printed and influential throughout the European musical world. He traveled throughout his life, and occupied posts in Brussels, over thirty years in Neuburg an der Donau and Düsseldorf, and Venice in 1615, joining Monteverdi's group at St. Mark's Cathedral, Padua, Parma, Ferrara, Milan, Bergamo, and Brescia in Italy. There is evidence that he married three times and fathered five children. He died in Venice. Although he wrote both instrumental and vocal music, he is better known for his innovative instrumental compositions. He contributed to the early development of the string idiom by expanding the performance range of the solo and accompanied violin and incorporating slur, double and even triple stopping, and the first explicitly notated tremolo (in the sonata La Foscarina, op. 1 No. 14; 1617) effects into his music. He was also among the first composers, after Marco Uccellini, to call for scordatura tunings. He made contributions to most of the contemporary genres and investigated unusual compositional procedures, like constructing an entire sonata without a cadence (as in his Sonata senza cadenza). At least some, and perhaps a great deal, of his output is lost, but that which survives exhibits his inventiveness, lyrical skill, harmonic boldness, and growing tendency toward common practice tonality. In addition to his violin works, he wrote music for the cornett, dulcian, and sackbut.One latter-day champion of Marini's music is the British violinist Andrew Manze, who has released a disc on the Harmonia Mundi label entitled Curiose e moderne inventioni devoted to Marini's music for strings.
- Birthplace: Brescia, Italy
- Ernesto Camillo Sivori, (June 6, 1817 – February 18, 1894) was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer. Born in Genoa, he was the only known pupil of Paganini. He also studied with Restano, Giacomo Costa and Dellepiane. From 1827 Sivori began the career of a travelling virtuoso, which lasted almost without interruption until 1864. He played Mendelssohn's concerto for the first time in England in 1846, and was in England again in the seasons of 1851 and 1864. Camilo Sivori collaborated with Giuseppe Verdi. In 1893 Verdi heard Sivori performed at his private music soiree and noted Sivori's impeccable technique, agility and musicianship. Sivori's performances ideas were directly influenced by Opera characters. His violin techniques, in many instances were executed to impersonate human sounds. "Le Stregghe" is one of his best examples in which his unique ability to create such lively, almost cinematographic effects is achieved. It is believed that Sivori recorded on Edison cylinders, some of which have been attributed to a German violinist and are now found in the UK. Sivori understood that he was the only violinist alive (in the late 1800s) who could immortalize Paganini's art of violin playing and unique Operatic interpretations. The school of violin playing was rapidly changing and Paganini's art was rapidly forgotten. He lived for many years in Paris, and died in Genoa in February 19,1894. He collaborated with composers of his day, including Franz Liszt. He played the first performance of Luigi Cherubini's "Requiem" in E minor. He owned many valuable instruments, including violins by Amati, Stradivari, Bergonzi, Chiocchi, and Jean Baptiste Vuillaume. His favourite was the Vuillaume violin, which he received from Paganini. It was an impeccably close copy of Paganini's famous Cannone Guarnerius. Sivori was known to adapt many peculiar pieces such that he could play them, and many of these pieces, once thought absurd, have now become quite popular. The best example of this is Giovanni Bottesini's Gran Duo Concertante, which was a double concerto originally written for two double basses, alternating the melody. Sivori changed it from two double basses to a violin and a double bass, alternating parts and sometimes playing together in the same octave.
- Birthplace: Genoa, Italy
- Carlo Farina (ca. 1600 – July 1639) was an Italian composer, conductor and violinist of the Early Baroque era.
- Birthplace: Mantua, Italy
- Carlo Tessarini (1690 – after 15 December 1766), was an Italian composer and violinist in the late Baroque era. Tessarini was born 1690 in Rimini and died in Amsterdam, Netherlands aged 76.
- Birthplace: Rimini, Italy
- Cesare Pugni (Italian pronunciation: [ˈtʃeːzare ˈpuɲɲi, ˈtʃɛː-]; Russian: Цезарь Пуни, romanized: Cezar' Puni; 31 May 1802 in Genoa – 26 January [O.S. 14 January] 1870) was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed for Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1843–1850), and for the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Russia (1850–1870). The majority of his ballet music was composed for the works of the ballet master Jules Perrot, who mounted nearly every one of his ballets to scores by Pugni. In 1850 Perrot departed London for Russia, having accepted the position of Premier maître de ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres at the behest of Carlotta Grisi, who was engaged as Prima ballerina. Cesare Pugni followed Perrot and Grisi to Russia, and remained in the imperial capital even after Grisi's departure in 1853 and Perrot's departure in 1858. Pugni went on the compose for Perrot's successors Arthur Saint-Léon and Marius Petipa, serving as the Imperial Theatre's official composer of ballet music until his death in 1870. Cesare Pugni is the most prolific composer of ballet music, having composed close to 100 known original scores for the ballet and adapting or supplementing many other works. He composed myriad incidental dances such as divertissements and variations, many of which were added to countless other works. Of Pugni's original scores for the ballet, he is best known today for Ondine, ou La Naïade, (also known as La Naïade et le pêcheur) (1843); La Esmeralda (1844); Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit (1846); The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862); and The Little Humpbacked Horse (1864). Of his incidental dances, etc., he is most noted for the Pas de Six from La Vivandière (also known as Markitenka) (1844); the Pas de Quatre (1845); La Carnival de Venise pas de deux (also known as Satanella pas de deux) (1859); the Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux (1868); and his additional music for the ballet Le Corsaire (1863 and 1868).
- Birthplace: Genoa, Italy
Chevalier Carlo Albanesi
- Cleofonte Campanini (1 September 1860 – 19 December 1919) was an Italian conductor. His brother was the tenor Italo Campanini.
- Birthplace: Parma, Italy
Davidé Rossi
Age: 54Davide Rossi (born 7 August 1970) is an Italian violinist, string arranger, composer, conductor and a record producer, perhaps best known for having been the violinist, guitar and keytar-player for the British electronic music duo Goldfrapp from 2000 until 2013, and for his large contribution of electric violin parts and for all the string arrangements on all Coldplay's albums since Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, and The Verve's album Forth.- Birthplace: Turin, Italy
- Domenico Gallo (1730 – c. 1768) was an Italian composer and violinist. Born in Venice in 1730, Gallo composed mostly church music, including a Stabat Mater. Gallo also composed violin sonatas, symphonies and possibly violin concertos. Some trio sonatas by Domenico Gallo were long attributed to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, including those upon which Igor Stravinsky based his music for the ballet Pulcinella. In fact, half of the surviving works by Gallo were once attributed to Pergolesi, probably because Gallo was little known, Pergolesi was famous and his name would sell the music.
- Birthplace: Venice, Scorzè, Italy
- Domenico Nordio is an Italian violinist who was born in Piove di Sacco (21 March 1971). Nordio studied violin with Corrado Romano and Michèle Auclair. He began his concert career very young, winning the Vercelli "Viotti" International Competition at the age of 16, with Yehudi Menuhin as President of the panel of judges. Successes followed at competitions such as the "Thibaud" in Paris, the "Sigall" in Viña del Mar and the "Francescatti" in Marseilles and, in particular, in 1988 the "Eurovision" which brought him international fame thanks to the final round broadcast throughout Europe from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Since then, his intense work schedule as a soloist has brought him to perform all over the world. He has played in London (Barbican Centre), Paris (Salle Pleyel), Tokyo (Suntory Hall), Geneva (Victoria Hall), Madrid (Teatro Monumental), Dublin (National Concert Hall), Istanbul (Atatürk Centre), Rome (Accademia di Santa Cecilia e Teatro dell’Opera), Moscow (Conservatoire Tchaikovskij), New York City (Carnegie Hall), Vienna (Konzerthaus), Zürich (Tonhalle), St.Petersburg (Philharmonic Great Hall), Prague (Spring Festival), Milan (Teatro Alla Scala) and with many prestigious orchestras. In Italy, he has performed almost everywhere. He signed a recording agreement with the Sony Music Group and his first CD for Sony Classical was released in March 2013. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Città di Brescia International Violin Competition, competition member of the WFIMC (World Federation of International Music Competitions). He's testimonial of "Friends of Stradivari", a special project run by the Stradivari Foundation, Cremona. He plays an Ansaldo Poggi from Bologna.
- Birthplace: Venice, Scorzè, Italy
- Enrico Gatti (born 1955) is an Italian violinist, known for playing Baroque music.Gatti was born in Perugia, Italy. He graduated from the Geneva Conservatory as a student of Chiara Banchini and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Sigiswald Kuijken. He has been a professor of Baroque violin at several conservatories. He has played with numerous ensembles and founded the Ensemble Aurora, a quartet which plays Baroque music in the traditional style, in 1986.
- Birthplace: Perugia, Italy
- Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco (12 July 1675, Verona, Italy — 12 July 1742, Munich, Bavaria) was an Italian composer and cellist.
- Birthplace: Verona, Italy
- Fabio Biondi (born 15 March 1961 in Palermo, Italy) is an Italian violinist and conductor. He is a specialist in Baroque and early music.
- Birthplace: Palermo, Italy
- Felice de Giardini (12 April 1716 – 8 June 1796) was an Italian composer and violinist.
- Birthplace: Turin, Italy
- Francesco Saverio Geminiani (baptised 5 December 1687 – 17 September 1762) was an Italian violinist, composer, and music theorist. BBC Radio 3 has described him as "now largely forgotten, but in his time considered almost a musical god, deemed to be the equal of Handel and Corelli."
- Birthplace: Lucca, Italy
- Francesco Maria Veracini (1 February 1690 – 31 October 1768) was an Italian composer and violinist, perhaps best known for his sets of violin sonatas. As a composer, according to Manfred Bukofzer, "His individual, if not subjective, style has no precedent in baroque music and clearly heralds the end of the entire era" (Bukofzer 1947, 234), while Luigi Torchi maintained that "he rescued the imperiled music of the eighteenth century" (Torchi 1901, 180). His contemporary, Charles Burney, held that "he had certainly a great share of whim and caprice, but he built his freaks on a good foundation, being an excellent contrapuntist" (Burney 1789, 4:569). The asteroid 10875 Veracini was named after him.
- Birthplace: Florence, Italy
- Francesco Onofrio Manfredini (22 June 1684 – 6 October 1762) was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and church musician. He was born at Pistoia to a trombonist. He studied violin with Giuseppe Torelli in Bologna, then a part of the Papal States, a leading figure in the development of the concerto grosso. He also took instruction in composition from Giacomo Antonio Perti, maestro di cappella of the Basilica of San Petronio from 1696 when the orchestra was temporarily disbanded. Although he composed oratorios, only his secular works remain in the repertoire. A contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, his extant work shows the influence of the latter.He became a violinist, c. 1700, in the orchestra of the Church of San Spirito in Ferrara. In 1704, however, he returned to Bologna, employed again in the re-formed orchestra of San Petronio. He became a member of the Accademia Filarmonica in the same year he published his first compositions, a set of twelve chamber sonatas he named Concertini per camera, Op. 1. In 1709, he also published Sinfonie da chiesa, Op. 2; ostensibly chamber pieces, they, in fact, complemented the earlier chamber sonatas.After 1711, Manfredini spent an extended stay in Monaco, apparently in the service of Prince Antoine I. The prince had been a pupil of Louis XIV's favorite composer Jean Baptiste Lully, whose conductor's baton he had inherited. The precise nature of his relationship to the court of Monaco, and the length of his stay, are not known. Manfredini is first mentioned in court records in 1712. In 1718 he would publish, in Bologna, his Concerti Grossi for two violins and basso continuo, Op. 3, Nos. 1-12 which is dedicated to that ruler. Also copies of his Sinfonie, Op. 2 were found in the princely library. One indication of the nature of the relationship is that Prince Antoine stood as godfather to Manfredini's son Antonio Francesco; four other children were born to him during his stay in the principality.Given even this slim evidence, it can be inferred that both parties were satisfied by the arrangement since the composer does not reappear in the historical records until the year 1727, when he had returned to Pistoia as maestro di cappella at St. Phillip's Cathedral, a post he would hold until his death in 1762.Much of his music is presumed to have been destroyed after his death; only 43 published works and a handful of manuscripts are known. To quote his Naxos biography, "His groups of Concerti Grossi and Sinfonias show a highly accomplished composer, well versed in the mainstream Italian school of composition."The Naxos label has released a 1991 recording of the Opus 3 (catalog number: 8.553891), recorded by the Slovakian Capella Istropolitana, conducted by Jaroslav Krček. The liner notes further suggest that his name "may have...disappeared had he not composed a Christmas Concerto (No. 12 of Op. 3).... [T]hese concerti grossi...demonstrate a gift for easy melodic invention." Two of his sons, Vincenzo and Giuseppe, had careers of some note. The former was appointed maestro di cappella of the Italian opera in St. Petersburg. Giuseppe became a castrato singer.
- Birthplace: Pistoia, Italy
- Gaetano Pugnani (27 November 1731 – 15 July 1798, full name: Giulio Gaetano Gerolamo Pugnani) was an Italian composer and violinist.
- Birthplace: Turin, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Bassani (c. 1650 – 1 October 1716) was an Italian composer, violinist, and organist.
- Birthplace: Padua, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Buonamente (ca. 1595 – 1642) was an Italian composer and violinist in the early Baroque era. He served the Gonzagas in Mantua until about 1622, and from about 1626 to 1630 served the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna. Notably, in 1627 he played for the coronation festivities in Prague of Ferdinand III, son of the emperor. He then served as the violinist of Madonna della Steccata church in Parma. After a short service there, he arrived at his final position in 1633 of maestro di cappella at Assisi.
- Birthplace: Mantua, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Fontana (1589–1630) was an early Baroque Italian composer and violinist. Fontana was born in Brescia, and worked there and in Rome, Venice, and Padua. He died in Padua during the plague of 1629–31. Nearly all information on Fontana comes from the preface by Fr. Giovanni Battista Reghino to his posthumously published 18 (sometimes incorrectly stated 12) sonatas (Sonate a 1.2.3. per il violino, o cornetto, fagotto, chitarone, violoncino o simile altro istromento, Venice: Bartolomeo Magni, 1641). They are among the earliest sonatas of this form, consisting of six sonatas for solo violin/cornetto with continuo and 12 sonatas for one to three violins and continuo, the latter group often including a demanding concertante part for bassoon or cello. "An atto di morte dated 7 September 1630 for a 'Zan Batta Fontana' aged 50, is the only one among the Paduan death registers of 1625–30 for a person bearing that name" (Dunn 2014).
- Birthplace: Brescia, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Draghi (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista ˈdraːɡi]; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), often referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Italian: [perɡoˈleːzi; -eːsi]), was an Italian composer, violinist and organist. His best-known works include his Stabat Mater and the opera La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress). His compositions include operas and sacred music. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.
- Birthplace: Iesi, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Somis (December 25, 1686 – August 14, 1763) was an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque music era. He studied under Arcangelo Corelli between 1703 and 1706 or 1707. He was later appointed solo violinist to the king at Turin and leader of the royal band, and seems scarcely ever to have left Turin after these appointments. A trip to Paris in 1731 to play at the Concert Spirituel produced a report in the April 1733 Le Mercure praising his playing.He published eight opus numbers in all: Opus 1 - 12 sonatas for violin and figured bass (1717 Amsterdam, published by J. Roger) Opus 2 - 12 sonatas for violin and figured bass (1723 Turin) Opus 3 - 12 sonatas for violin and figured bass (1725 Turin) Opus 4 - 12 sonatas for violin and figured bass (1726 Paris) Opus 5 - 6 trio sonatas for two violins and figured bass (1733 Paris, published by Boisvin) Opus 6 - 12 sonatas for violin and figured bass (1734 Paris) Opus 7 - "Ideali trattimenti da camera" for two violins, two flutes or violes (1750 Paris) Opus 8 - 6 trio sonatas He formed a style more brilliant and more emotional, and caused a decided step forward in the art of violin playing. He was the teacher of Jean-Marie Leclair, Felice Giardini, Louis-Gabriel Guillemain, and Chabran, as well as Gaetano Pugnani, and he forms a connecting link between the classical schools of Italy and France. He died in Turin.
- Birthplace: Turin, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness. He was also a director of French and Italian opera companies in Paris and London. He personally knew Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven.
- Birthplace: Fontanetto Po, Italy
- Giovanni Battista Vitali (18 February 1632 – 12 October 1692) was an Italian composer and violone player. Vitali was born in Bologna and spent all of his life in the Emilian region, moving to Modena in 1674. His teacher in his early years was probably Maurizio Cazzati (1616–1678), maestro di cappella at the main church in Bologna, San Petronio Basilica from 1657 to 1671.The first documented evidence of Vitali’s musical activities appears in the records of the San Petronio orchestra for 1658, when he is listed under the title ‘Violoni’, referring to the cello/bass instrument that he played (to be discussed below). Vitali remained in the orchestra until 1673, when he took up an appointment as maestro di cappella at the chapel of the Confraternità del Rosario, Bologna. His first publication, Opus 1 (1666), tells us that he was a member of the Accademia dei Filaschisi. This musical institution, which had been established in 1633, disbanded in 1666 when most of its members joined the Accademia Filarmonica. Vitali is also listed as a member of the Accademia Filarmonica in 1666, the year of its founding. The academy archives record various details of its members, including where they came from (if not from Bologna) and their dates of birth and death. Vitali’s death date is here recorded as 12 October 1692. Vitali never reached a higher position in Bologna than that of maestro di cappella at the Santissimo Rosario. There may be several reasons for this. By the time he left Bologna and moved to Modena he had not published any vocal music and is known to have composed only two vocal works, the oratorios Agare and Il Gefte. He was also, significantly, not an organist – unlike the vast majority of maestri di cappella in Bologna during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is unlikely, therefore, that even if Vitali had stayed longer in Bologna he would have been offered the job of maestro di cappella at San Petronio, the most important musical position in the city. In 1674 Vitali attained the position of one of two vice-maestri di cappella at the secular court of the Este family in Modena. Unlike Modena, Bologna was part of the Papal States, under the administration of Rome. The Church’s influence was strong (around one hundred and fifty religious institutions at the end of the seventeenth century). Music and the theatre were evidently strongly supported and patronised by the court under Duke Francesco II (1660–1694). Here, Vitali must have witnessed a greater diversity of musical styles and genres than he had been exposed to in Bologna. The period between 1680 and 1685 saw his most productive time: he published six collections of music and was promoted to maestro di cappella in 1684. He was succeeded in this position by the opera composer Antonio Giannettini (1648–1721) in 1686. His last two publications, Artificii musicali, Opus 13 (1689), and the posthumously published Sonate da camera, Opus 14 (1692), make no mention of Vitali holding any official position, although the fact that both publications are dedicated to members of the Este family implies that he maintained links with the court.
- Birthplace: Bologna, Italy
- Giovanni Benedetto Platti (born possibly 9 July 1697 (according to other sources 1690, 1692, 1700) in Padua, belonging to Venice at the time; died 11 January 1763 in Würzburg) was an Italian oboist and composer.
- Birthplace: Padua, Italy
Giovanni Ricordi
Dec. at 68 (1785-1853)Giovanni Ricordi (1785 – 15 March 1853) was an Italian violinist and the founder of the classical music publishing company Casa Ricordi, described by musicologist Philip Gossett as "a genius and positive force in the history of Italian opera".Ricordi was born in Milan in 1785 to Gianbatista Ricordi, who was a glassmaker, and Angiola de Medici. Ricordi studied the violin from an early age and, for a short time, became the concertmaster and conductor of the small puppet theatre Fiando. In 1803 he created a copisteria in Milan where he worked as a music copyist and dealer in printed music and instruments with the Teatro Carcano, which opened in that year, and with the Teatro Lentasio. In 1807 he studied in Leipzig at the Breitkopf & Härtel company to learn the techniques of engraving and printing. When he returned to Milan in early 1808, he founded his publishing company with a partner who dropped out by the middle of the year. As MacNutt notes, during its first decade the company produced some 30 publications each year. That number increased to 300 after 1814 because Giovanni had secured a succession of contracts, including one in that year which allowed him to publish all the music performed at the La Scala opera house, a contract won due to his work as a prompter and exclusive copyist. As he began to acquire a stock of manuscripts from existing theatres and copyists, he added a clause in his contracts which allowed, at the end of a run of performances of an opera, for the company to acquire the rights to it for successive presentations elsewhere. The contracts allowed the company to assemble a significant catalogue of music which became the basis of the Ricordi company. It was through the gradual accession to the rights to control La Scala's archives, as well as subsequently-produced operas, that he was able to bypass the limitations on publishing full scores, and—as Gossett notes—"not be its employee but a private entrepreneur from whom theatres rented materials". In contrast, many of Ricordi's competitors produced "hackwork manuscripts" in no way based on the composers' autographs.By the 1840s and throughout that decade, Casa Ricordi had grown to be the largest music publisher in southern Europe and in 1842 the company created the musical journal the Gazzetta Musicale di Milano. His adopted practices radically changed the music publishing market, ensuring that composers received revenues not only at the time they delivered the composition, but also for the subsequent productions mounted elsewhere. In 1825 he acquired all the manuscripts belong to the Teatro alla Scala, and began to circulate handwritten copies intended for rental, which alongside the sale of the reductions for soloists and piano, produced another level of demand. In addition, Ricordi's use of new techniques such as lithography and intaglio printing, he was able to reduce costs and increase the print runs. Finally, the company produced vocal scores and then complete scores. Ricordi befriended many major Italian operatic composers of his time, including Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi whose works he published. Ricordi's correspondence with Verdi is studied to gain a full insight into the latter's activities. Ricordi died on 15 March 1853 in Milan.- Birthplace: Milan, Italy
Giuliano Carmignola
Age: 74Giuliano Carmignola (Treviso, July 7, 1951) is an Italian violinist. Born in Treviso, he studied with his father, then with Luigi Ferro at the Venice Conservatory and afterwards with Nathan Milstein and Franco Gulli at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy and Henryk Szeryng at the Geneva Conservatory. In 1973, he was awarded a prize in the International Paganini Competition in Genoa.- Birthplace: Treviso, Italy
- Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino Cambini (Livorno, 13 February? 1746–Netherlands? 1810s? or Paris? 1825?) was an Italian composer and violinist.
- Birthplace: Livorno, Italy
- Giuseppe Matteo Alberti (or Giuseppi) (20 September 1685, in Bologna, Italy – 18 February 1751, in Bologna, Italy) was an Italian Baroque composer and violinist.
- Birthplace: Bologna, Italy
Henri Piccoli
Henri Piccoli was an actor and violinist.- Jacopo Melani (6 July 1623 – 18 August 1676) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. He was born and died in Pistoia, and was the brother of composer Alessandro Melani and singer Atto Melani.
- Birthplace: Pistoia, Italy
- Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini (Italian: [ni(k)koˈlɔ ppaɡaˈniːni] (listen); 27 October 1782 – 27 May 1840) was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices for Solo Violin Op. 1 are among the best known of his compositions, and have served as an inspiration for many prominent composers.
- Birthplace: Genoa, Italy
- Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti CBE (born 20 July 1987) is a Scottish classical violinist.
- Birthplace: West Kilbride, United Kingdom
- Nicola Matteis (Matheis) (fl. c. 1670 – after 1713) was the earliest notable Italian Baroque violinist in London, whom Roger North judged in retrospect "to have been a second to Corelli," and a composer of significant popularity in his time, though he had been utterly forgotten until the later 20th century.Very little is known of his early life, although Matteis was probably born in Naples, describing himself as 'Napolitano' in several of his works. He came to London in the early 1670s and according to the diarist Roger North, had a city merchant as a sponsor, who schooled him in the ways of currying favor from the gentry (by allowing them to accompany him in parlor recitals and other minor performances). John Evelyn reports in his diary for 19 November 1674, the earliest notice of Matteis, "I heard that stupendious Violin Signor Nichola (with other rare Musitians) whom certainly never mortal man exceeded on that instrument, he had a stroak so sweete, made it speaking like the Voice of a man and when he pleased, like a Consort of severall Instruments: he did wonders upon a Note: was an excellent Composer also. Nothing approched the violin in Nichola's hand: he seemed to be inspired and played such ravishing things on a ground as astonishd us all."Matteis enjoyed great artistic and commercial success with his published music, notably four books of Ayres (1676, 1685), but married a rich widow in 1700 and retired from the London musical scene; according to North he nevertheless ended his days in ill health and poverty.Matteis is credited with changing the English taste for violin playing from the French style to a newer, Italian one. Contemporaries described him as using a longer bow, with a new bow hold (closer to that used by modern players). His reputation grew through his lifetime and resulted in high praise for his live performances (in concert, audiences were often certain that more than one violin was being played) and widespread popularity for his music. Knowing many of his customers were amateurs, Matteis tended to give precise instructions in the prefaces to his published Ayres, providing detailed notes on bowing, explanations of ornaments, tempos, and other directions. These notes have proved valuable resources for scholars reconstructing the performance practices of the time.
- Birthplace: Naples, Italy
- Ottorino Respighi ( reh-SPEE-ghee, also US: rə-, Italian: [ottoˈriːno reˈspiːɡi]; 9 July 1879 – 18 April 1936) was an Italian violinist, composer and musicologist, best known for his trilogy of orchestral tone poems: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928). His musicological interest in 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century music led him to compose pieces based on the music of these periods. He also wrote several operas, the most famous being La fiamma.
- Birthplace: Bologna, Italy
- Pietro Castrucci was an Italian violinist and composer. Castrucci was born in Rome, where he studied with Arcangelo Corelli; in 1715, he settled in London, where he became known as one of the finest virtuoso violinists of his generation. By 1718 he had become leader of the opera orchestra of George Frideric Handel, a position which he held until 1737, when he was succeeded by the younger John Clegg. In 1739 he became one of the first beneficiaries of the Royal Society of Musicians and was little heard of thereafter, apart from an erroneous report of his death in 1746. After a benefit concert in Dublin in 1750, he died there of malaria in 1752. Despite being by then a pauper, he was buried with full ceremony in St. Mary's Church, Dublin. Castrucci was the inventor of the 'violetta marina', which was a variation of the viola d'amore. Handel wrote obbligati for this instrument.
- Birthplace: Rome, Italy
- Pietro Nardini (April 12, 1722 – May 7, 1793) was an Italian composer and violinist, a transitional musician who worked in both the Baroque and Classical era traditions.
- Birthplace: Livorno, Italy
- Salamone Rossi or Salomone Rossi (Hebrew: סלומונה רוסי or שלמה מן האדומים) (Salamon, Schlomo; de' Rossi) (ca. 1570 – 1630) was an Italian Jewish violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian Renaissance period and early Baroque.
- Birthplace: Mantua, Italy
- Salvatore Accardo (Italian pronunciation: [salvaˈtoːre akˈkardo]; Knight Grand Cross born 26 September 1941 in Turin, northern Italy) is an Italian violinist and conductor, who is known for his interpretations of the works of Niccolò Paganini. Accardo studied violin in the southern Italian city of Naples in the 1950s. He gave his first professional recital at the age of 13 performing Paganini's Capricci. In 1958 Accardo became the first prize winner of the Paganini Competition in Genoa. He has recorded Paganini's 24 Caprices (re-recorded in 1999) for solo violin and was the first violinist to record all six of the violin concerti by Paganini. He has an extensive discography of almost 50 recordings on Philips, DG, EMI, Sony Classical, Foné, Dynamic, and Warner-Fonit. Notably, he has recorded an album of classical and contemporary works in 1995 on Paganini's Guarneri del Gesù 1742 violin, Il Cannone. Accardo founded the Accardo Quartet in 1992 and he was one of the founders of the Walter Stauffer Academy in 1986. He founded the Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples and the Cremona String Festival in 1971, and in 1996, he re-founded the Orchestra da Camera Italiana (O.C.I.), whose members are the best pupils of the Walter Stauffer Academy. The most famous pupils are Alessio Bidoli and Anastasiya Petryshak. He performed the music of Paganini for the soundtrack of the 1989 film Kinski Paganini. In the 1970s he was a leader of the celebrated Italian chamber orchestra "I Musici" (1972-1977). After he was a student in Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, he taught there from 1973 to 1980. In 2004, he came back to Siena, and now he teaches in Accademia Musicale Chigiana. Accardo owns one Stradivarius violin, the "Hart ex Francescatti" (1727) and had the "Firebird ex Saint-Exupéry" (1718).
- Birthplace: Turin, Italy
- Salvatore Greco (born Palermo, 1964) is an Italian violinist, leader of the Orchestra of Teatro Massimo, Palermo since 1991.
- Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (8 June 1671 – 17 January 1751) was an Italian Baroque composer. While famous in his day as an opera composer, he is known today for his instrumental music, especially his concertos. He is also remembered today for a work called "Adagio in G minor", supposedly written by him, but probably written by Remo Giazotto, a modern musicologist and composer, who was a cataloger of the works of Albinoni.
- Birthplace: Venice, Scorzè, Italy
- Tomaso Antonio Vitali (March 7, 1663 – May 9, 1745) was an Italian composer and violinist from Bologna, the eldest son of Giovanni Battista Vitali. He is known mainly for a chaconne in G minor for violin and continuo, which was published from a manuscript in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden in Die Hoch Schule des Violinspiels (1867) edited by German violinist Ferdinand David). That work's wide-ranging modulations into distant keys have raised speculation that it could not be a genuine baroque work.
- Birthplace: Bologna, Italy
- Diodato "Uto" Ughi, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (Italian: [ˈuːto ˈuːɡi]; born 21 January 1944 in Busto Arsizio, Italy), is an Italian violinist and conductor. He was the music director of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia between 1987–1992. He is considered one of Italy's greatest living violinists and is also active in the promotion of classical music in today's culture.When he was young he started to play the violin, at only «5 or 6 years» he said, and he made his debut at 7 years old, at the Teatro Lirico di Milano. At 12 years he was considered a mature artist.He involves himself in many activities to promote music culture. He is the founder of several music festivals, namely "Omaggio a Venezia", "Omaggio a Roma" (1999–2002) and "Uto Ughi per Roma." In tandem with Bruno Tosi, Uto Ughi instituted the musical prize "Una vita per la Musica" ("A life for Music"). On September 4, 1997 he was commissioned Cavaliere della Gran Croce by the Italian President and in 2002 he received a degree honoris causa in Communication studies. He has won various awards, the most prestigious "Una vita per la musica - Leonard Bernstein" (23/6/1997), "Galileo 2000" prize (5/7/2003) and the international prize "Ostia Mare" (8/8/2003). Ughi has possessed the following fine instruments: the Van Houten-Kreutzer (1701) and Sinsheimer-General Kyd-Perlman (1714) by Antonio Stradivari; and the Kortschak-Wurlitzer (1739), Ole Bull (1744) and Cariplo-Hennel-Rosé (1744) by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2015.
- Birthplace: Busto Arsizio, Italy