Vincenzo Tommasini (17 September 1878–23 December 1950) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
.
Born in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, Tommasini studied
philologyPhilology considers both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies.Classical philology is the philology of the Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages...
and the
Greek languageGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
at the
University of RomeSapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza - Università di Roma, commonly known as Università di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy. It is the largest European university and the oldest of Rome's three state-funded universities; Sapienza was...
, at the same time pursuing equally intensive studies in music at the Academy of St. Cecilia. In 1902 he traveled extensively throughout
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
; during this time he studied under
Max BruchMax Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, one of which is a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he received his...
in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He first achieved note with a one-act
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
,
Uguale fortuna, which won a national competition.
Vincenzo Tommasini (17 September 1878–23 December 1950) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
.
Born in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, Tommasini studied
philologyPhilology considers both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies.Classical philology is the philology of the Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages...
and the
Greek languageGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
at the
University of RomeSapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza - Università di Roma, commonly known as Università di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy. It is the largest European university and the oldest of Rome's three state-funded universities; Sapienza was...
, at the same time pursuing equally intensive studies in music at the Academy of St. Cecilia. In 1902 he traveled extensively throughout
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
; during this time he studied under
Max BruchMax Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, one of which is a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he received his...
in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He first achieved note with a one-act
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
,
Uguale fortuna, which won a national competition. His biggest success internationally was his 1916
arrangementIn music, an arrangement is either a rewriting of a piece of existing music with additional new material or a fleshing-out of a compositional sketch, such as a lead sheet...
of
sonataSonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
s by
Domenico ScarlattiGiuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...
for the
Sergei DiaghilevSergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , also referred to as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes from which many famous dancers and choreographers would later arise.- Early life and career :Sergei Diaghilev was born to a wealthy family in Selischi ,...
balletBallet is a formalized type of performance dance, which originated in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French courts, and which was further developed in England, Italy, and Russia as a concert dance form...
in
Le donne di buon umoreThe Good-Humoured Ladies is a ballet with scenery and costumes by Léon Bakst, choreography by Léonide Massine, and music arranged from sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti by Vincenzo Tommasini. Written in 1917, the piece was based on a comedy by Carlo Goldoni; its plot concerns the diversions of a...
(
The Good-Humored Ladies). It was he and
Arturo ToscaniniArturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th Centuries, he was renowned for his brilliant intensity, his restless perfectionism, his phenomenal ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
who completed
Arrigo BoitoArrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his opera libretti and his own opera, Mefistofele.-Biography:...
's unfinished opera
Nerone.
Tommasini was a leading figure in the revival of
orchestraAn orchestra is an instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l music in twentieth-century
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. Among his other works are
Paesaggi toscaniPaesaggi toscani is a rhapsody for orchestra composed in 1922 by Vincenzo Tommasini; it was introduced in Rome in December, 1923. The piece is based on Tuscan folk melodies, and is played in two uninterrupted sections...
(
Tuscan Landscapes) for orchestra and a set of variations, also for orchestra, on the
Carnival of Venice.