Scan 42
Baker S Biographical Dictionary Of Musicians, 1900
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1Alfano, Franco, eminent Italian composer; b. Posilippo (Naples), March 8, 1876; d. San Remo, Oct. 26, 1954. He studied composition with Paolo Serrao in Naples, and with Jadassohn and Hans Sitt in Leipzig. From the beginning of his musical career, Alfano was interested in opera. His first stage work Miranda was produced in Leipzig when he was barely 20; another opera, La Fonte di Enscir, followed (Breslau, Nov. 8, 1898). In 1900 he went to Paris and became fascinated by light theater music. While in Paris he wrote a folk ballet Napoli which was staged at Folies-Bergères (Jan. 28, 1901), proving so successful that it ran for 160 successive performances. Returning to Italy, he began work on an opera after Tolstoy's novel Resurrection. It was produced as Risurrezione, in Turin (Nov. 4, 1904) with sensational acclaim; the American premiere (Chicago, Dec. 31, 1925) was equally successful; there were also numerous performances in Germany and France. The opera was widely praised for its dramatic power and melodic richness in the best tradition of realistic Italian opera. Alfano continued to compose industriously for another half-century, but his later operas failed to equal the success of Risurrezione. They are: Il Principe Zilah (Genoa, Feb. 3, 1909); L'ombra di Don Giovanni (La Scala, Milan, April 3, 1914); La Leggenda di Sakuntala (Bologna, Dec. 10, 1921); Madonna Imperia, lyric comedy (Turin, May 5, 1927; Met. Opera, N.Y., Feb. 8, 1928); L'Ultimo Lord (Naples, April 19, 1930); Cyrano de Bergerac (Rome, Jan. 22, 1936); Il Dottor Antonio (Rome, April 30, 1949). Alfano also wrote 3 symphonies (1909; 1932; 1934); 3 string quartets, a violin sonata, a cello sonata, and a ballet Vesuvius (1938; a symphonic poem was drawn from it in 1946). One of Alfano's signal achievements was that he completed Puccini's last opera, Turandot, adding the last scene. His Hymn to Bolivar, for chorus and orch., written for the centennial of Bolivar's death, was performed in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 22, 1930. He was also active in the field of musical education; was successively director of the 'Liceo musicale' in Bologna (1919-23); of the Turin Cons. (1923-39); superintendent of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (1940-42), and from 1947, director of the Rossini Cons. in Pesaro. — Bibl.: G. M. Gatti, Franco Alfano in 'Musicisti moderni d'Italia e di fuori,' (Bologna, 1920; also in the 'Musical Times,' March, 1921); G. Cesari, La leggenda di Sakuntala di Franco Alfano in the 'Rivista Musicale Italiana' (Turin, 1921); Andrea della Corte, Ritratto di Franco Alfano (Turin, 1935). Ettore Desderi published a list of Alfano's works in 'Bolletino bibliografico musicale' (Milan, 1931).
3Alfarabi, or Alpharabius, properly Al Farabi (abbr. Farabi) so named from his birthplace Farab (now transoxine (othrāx), Arabian music theorist; b. c. 870; d. Damascus, c. 950. Of Turkish descent, he became renowned through his writings on philosophy, political science and the arts. He was a Greek scholar and attempted unsuccessfully to introduce the Greek musical system into his country. His principal work is Kitab al-musiqi al-kabir ('Greater Book about Music') dealing with acoustics, intervals, scales, instruments and rhythm. The 2nd volume of this work was lost. Excerpts from this book are contained in Kosegarten's Alii Ispahannis Liber Cantilenarum Magnus (1840) and in J. Land's Recherches sur l'histoire de la gamme arabe (Leyden, 1884). See also M. Steinschneider, Al-Farabi (St. Petersburg, 1869); Baron d'Erlanger, La Musique arabe, vol. I (Paris, 1930); E. A. Beichert, Die Wissenschaft der Musik bei Al-Farabi (Regensburg, 1931); H. G. Farmer, Al-Farabi's Arabic-Latin Writings on Music (Glasgow, 1934).
5Alferaky, Achilles Nikolayevitch, Russian composer of Greek origin; b. Taganrog, July 3, 1846; d. Petrograd, 1920. He studied in Moscow with V. Suk (1884); wrote an opera St. John's Eve and numerous songs and piano pieces of considerable merit, in a romantic Russian style mainly influenced by Tchaikovsky; most of these were published by Balaev.
7Alfieri, Pietro, Italian music scholar; b. Rome, June 29, 1801; d. there, June 12, 1863. He was a member of the Camaldolese Order; taught Gregorian music at the English College in Rome. His major work is Raccolta di musica sacra (1841-46), a collection of 16th-century church music in 7 vols., which includes virtually all representative works of Palestrina; other collections are Excerpta ex celebrioribus de musica viris (Rome, 1840), containing works by Palestrina, Victoria and Allegri; Raccolta di motetti (1841), etc. His essays on Gregorian chant are very valuable: Rinnovamento del canto e della musica ecclesiastica (1843); Saggio storico del canto gregoriano (1855); Prudromo sulla restaurazione de' libri di canto ecclesiastico detto gregoriano (1857), etc.; he also publ. a biography of N. Jommelli (1845) and contributed articles on musical subjects to Italian periodicals.
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