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| Composers Biography - Languages - |  |
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Guido Alberto Fano
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| He began studying music at the age of nine, under the guidance of Vittorio Orefice, choir master and conductor in Padua, who gave him his first piano lessons and who brought him into contact with stage-life and with directing orchestras and choirs. At the age of 16, his first teacher, always dear to him, entrusted him to the care of Cesare Pollini, director of the Musical Institute of Padova, and court pianist of Her Majesty the Queen Mother. During this period he studied a great deal of chamber music and started to play in public, both at private musical evenings and at public concerts in Veneto and elsewhere. He met Antonio Bazzini, who liked his first compositions, and Riccardo Drigo.In 1894 he went to Bologna, for an audition with Giuseppe Martucci, who immediately took him as his student in piano and composition.He received his diploma in music with First Class Honours, which had not been given before in the previous ten years, during which Martucci had directed the "Liceo Musicale" in Bologna. In this period he composed his first symphonic pieces: the "Preludio Sinfonico" and "Introduzione, Lento fugato, Allegro appassionato". In 1897, thanks to Martucci’s involvement, he went to Germany, where he studied in Ratisbon, Nurenberg, Baireuth and Munich. He met Richard Strauss, who liked his compositions and his style of piano playing.In 1900 he was in Vienna, where he participated in the " Rubinstein International Competition", where he obtained a special mention for his Fantasie for piano, for the "Sonata per pianoforte e violoncello", a composition which had been farmerly awakded with the first prize at the competition of the "Societą del Quartetto" of Milan in 1898, and for the "Andante e Allegro con fuoco" for piano and orchestra.In 1901 he obtained a Degree in Law from the University of Bologna; during these years he met Arturo Toscanini He had been seeing the poets Giosuč Carducci and Gabriele D’Annunzio, for whom he wrote the music for some of their lyrics; in 1904 and 1905 he went back to Germany. In Berlin he met Ferruccio Busoni, who offered him the possibility of becoming piano teacher at the Conservatory of Chicago, but Fano refused the proposal.Instead, he was planning to leave his job as a piano teacher at the "Liceo Musicale" in Bologna and to organize a big concert tour in Europe. However, in 1905 he obtained a post as Director of the Conservatory of Parma from among a group of 36 candidates, who were examined by a commitee presided over by Toscanini; between 1906 and 1908 he conducted two opera seasons. In 1911 he was offered a post as a teacher and "virtuoso" in piano music by the College of music of Cincinnati (Ohio, U.S.A.), but, once again, he decided to remain in Italy and declined the proposal. He therefore stayed in Parma until 1912, when he was assigned the Directorship of the Conservatory "S.Pietro a Maiella" in Naples, a post which had remained vacant since the death of the former director, Martucci, in 1909. He remained in Naples until 1916, when he was forced to move to Palermo, against his will, as a consequence of his attempts at reforming the Neapolitan school. In 1922, still not resigned to remaining in that post, he asked for and was able to regain a post as a piano teacher at the Conservatory of Milan. He occupied this position until 1938, when he lost the job because of the racist laws passed by the Fascists. Between the two wars, he dedicated himself almost entirely to playing and teaching, leaving aside his activities as a composer. He went back to Milan at the end of the war, and he remained there until he died, in 1961, while he was having a holiday at Tauriano di Spilimbergo, in the province of Udine.
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