Amilcare ponchielli biography

Amilcare Ponchielli August 31, — January 16, was an Italian composer , largely of operas. Born in Paderno Fasolaro , now Paderno Ponchielli , near Cremona , Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory , writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old. Two years after leaving the conservatory he wrote his first opera -- it was based on Alessandro Manzoni 's great novel I promessi sposi The Betrothed -- and it was as an opera composer that he eventually found fame.

His early career was disappointing. Maneuvered out of a professorship at the Milan Conservatory that he had won in a competition, he took small-time jobs in small cities, and composed several operas, none successful at first. In spite of his disappointment, he gained much experience as the bandmaster capobanda in Piacenza and Cremona , arranging and composing over works for wind band.

Amilcare ponchielli biography: Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian opera

Notable among his "original" compositions for band are the first-ever concerto for euphonium Concerto per Flicornobasso, , fifteen variations on the Neapolitan song "Carnevale di Venezia", and a series of festive and funeral marches that resound with the pride of the newly unified Italy and the private grief of his fellow Cremonese.

The turning point was the big success of the revised version of I promessi sposi in , which brought him a contract with the music publisher G. The ballet Le due gemelle confirmed his success. His best known opera is La Gioconda , which his librettist Arrigo Boito adapted from the same play by Victor Hugo that had been previously set by Mercadante Il giuramento , and Carlos Gomes Fosca , It was first produced in and revised several times.

The version that has become so popular today was first given in