Description

ENRICO POLO (18 NOVEMBER 1868 IN PARMA – 3 DECEMBER 1953 IN MILAN)

 

 

 

 

Polo was admitted to the Royal School of Music in Parma (now the Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito) in 1879 studying violin and composition. He graduated in June 1887 with honors and received the Barbacini Prize for outstanding graduate of his class. He was a close friend of orchestra director Arturo Toscanini from the earliest years of study in Parma. In the fall of 1887, Toscanini was to conduct Giuseppe Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata and requested Polo to play the lengthy violin solo at the end of Act III.

In 1893, with the financial support of Count Stefano Sanvitale, Polo went to Berlin to study with Joseph Joachim. He returned to Italy in 1895 and was appointed Toscanini’s concertmaster at Teatro Regio in Turin. He married Toscanini’s wife’s sister.

In 1903 Polo was appointed Professor of Violin at the Milan Conservatory where he was an influential teacher for more than thirty years. In 1906, he founded the Quartetto Polo along with violinist Costantino Soragna, violist Guglielmo “Willy” Koch and cellist Camillo Moro. The quartet performed to great acclaim in Milan and throughout Europe. During World War I, Soragna was replaced by Michelangelo Abbado, a student of Polo at the Conservatory, and Moro by Riccardo Malipiero. After the War, the quartet continued its activities until 1922 when it disbanded for financial reasons. In 1910, Polo and pianist Enrico Consolo gave the first Italian performance of the complete cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven’s ten Violin Sonatas.

In subsequent years, Polo dedicated himself entirely to teaching. His motto was: “L’amore è il primo segreto del buon insegnamento; non basta il metodo, ci vuole il cuore” (Love is the first secret of good teaching; it’s not just the method, it takes heart). He donated his books and scores to the library of the Milan Conservatory.

Polo composed several important pedagogical volumes, as well as transcribed, arranged and edited many works for violin and viola.

 

 

 

ALBERTO CURCI (NAPLES, 5 DECEMBER, 1886 – NAPLES, 2 JUNE, 1973)

 

 

 

 

He was born to Pasquale Curci and Clotilde Milo.

Grandson of Francesco Curci, founder of the Curci musical editions, he began studying the violin at a young age; he was a pupil of the violinist Angelo Fermi at the Naples Conservatory . Having graduated in 1904, he had the opportunity the following year to go to Berlin to perfect his skills with Joseph Joachim. Having completed his training with Joachim, he immediately began his concert career, appearing in Berlin theatres as early as 1906, then in Cologne and in many other German cities. From 1908 he was invited several times to perform in Scandinavia and in 1909, on the occasion of Mendelssohn’s centenary, he was invited to play his Violin Concerto op. 64 in various German cities. His activity in Germany was very intense, crowned in Berlin with chamber music activities and the performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Around 1910 he was invited to Prague by the circle of famous violinists named after the Bohemian violinist Otakar Ševčík. At the outbreak of the First World War he had to return to Italy and, called up for military service, he held a series of concerts for the Italian troops at the front. In 1916 he was offered the chair of violin by the director of the Naples conservatory, a position he held with honour for the rest of his life. In 1918, after the war, he undertook a long concert tour in Europe, the Dutch Indies and the East with the pianist Luigi La Volpe.

Having returned definitively to Italy, in 1919 he founded in Naples, together with his brother Alfredo and Oreste de Rubertis, the society “Friends of Music”, where the most prestigious interpreters of international concert music performed: Wilhelm Backhaus , Edwin Fischer , Walter Gieseking , Alfred Cortot , Arthur Rubinstein , Rudolf Serkin , Franz von Vecsey , Artur Schnabel , Jascha Heifetz , Adolf Busch , Fritz Kreisler , Gaspar Cassadò and of course many Italian interpreters.

From 1938, the year of his father’s death, he took care of the family publishing business together with his two brothers Giuseppe and Alfredo (the fourth brother, Arturo, instead preferred to dedicate himself to the medical profession).

After the war he began to devote himself to a career as a composer of mainly didactic works, continuing to teach at the Conservatory, and alongside his publishing career. Having established his own headquarters in Naples, he gave life to various publishing initiatives in collaboration with other colleagues: contemporary music, large collections of classical music, didactic repertoire, revisions of classical and romantic authors. He published Italian and foreign monographs and theoretical works, some of which he translated from German and French himself. At the Conservatory, over a period of forty years, he trained numerous students active in the didactic and concert fields, including Aldo Pavanelli and Angelo Gaudino. In 1966 he founded the “Fondazione Curci” with the aim of encouraging musical activity through the awarding of scholarships. From 1947 to 1973 he was the editor-in-chief of the periodical “Rassagna musicale Curci”. He died in Naples on 2 June 1973.

 

 

 

ALFRED RODE (BORN ALFRED SPEDALIERE; TORRE DEL GRECO, CAMPANIA, 4 JUNE, 1905 – LISIEUX, CALVADOS, 22 JULY, 1979)

 

 

 

 

Alfred Rode was an Italian-born French composer, musician, actor and film director. He was born in Torre del Greco. In 1936 Rode appeared in the British film Gypsy Melody alongside Lupe Vélez, which was a remake of his own 1935 film Juanita. Rode was married to the French actress Claudine Dupuis in 1951.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

1. Enrico Polo Berceuse de Jocelyn (Godard) Pathé 84094
2. Enrico Polo Cavatina (Raff) Pathé 84099
3. Enrico Polo Elegia (Bazzini) Pathé 84098
4. Enrico Polo Scène de ballet (Bériot) Pathé 84101
5. Alberto Curci Engellied (Braga) (vocal Fanny Opfer) Anker 03925
6. Alberto Curci Spielmannslied (vocal Fanny Opfer) (Hildach) Anker 03926
7. Francesco Asti Romance Op. 78, No. 2 (Sibelius) HMV 32-1446 C2004
8. Francesco Asti Sentimental Romance Op. 28 (Stenhammar) HMV 32-1445 C2004
9. Francesco Asti Serenata Op. 15 No. 1 (Moszkowski) HMV BE 2352-2
10. Alfredo Rode La Clochette (Paganini) HMV B 2436 7-7959
11. Alfredo Rode The Dance of the Goblins (Bazzini) HMV B 2436 7-7960
12. Alfredo Rode Variations on A Carnival of Venice (arr. Rode) HMV C. 1380 5-07902
13. Alfredo Rode Zigeunerweisen (Sarasate) HMV C. 1380 5-07901