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Franco Alfano (March 8, 1875 – October 27, 1954) was an Italian composer and pianist. Though today best known for completing Puccini's unfinished opera Turandot in 1926, he had considerable success with his own works during his lifetime.
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He was born in Posillipo, near Naples. Until recent times, musical histories usually gave the year of Alfano's birth, incorrectly, as 1876. He attended piano privately under Alessandro Longo (1864-1946), and harmony and composition respectively under Camillo de Nardis (1857-1951) and Paolo Serrao (1830-1907) at the conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples. Later, after graduating, he pursued further composition studies with Hans Sitt (1850-1922) and Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) in Leipzig. While working there he met his idol, Edvard Grieg, and wrote numerous piano and orchestral pieces. He completed his first opera, Miranda, still unpublished, for which he also wrote the libretto after a novel by Antonio Fogazzaro, in 1896. His work La Fonte Di Enschir (libretto by Luigi Illica) was refused by Ricordi but was shown in Wrocław (then Breslau) as Die Quelle von Enschir on 8 November 1898, enjoying some success.
The following three operas are usually considered as his most important:
From 1918 he was Director of the Conservatory of Bologna, and he directed the Turin Conservatory from 1923. Alfano died in San Remo.[1]
Fanfare Sept/Oct 98-99 gives the following information: Alfano's reputation suffers because (a) he should not be judged as a composer on the basis of the task he was given in completing Turandot (La Scala, April 25, 1926), (b) "we almost never hear everything he wrote for Turandot--the standard ending heavily edits Alfano's work."[2] (c)"...it is not his conclusion that is performed in productions of Turandot but only what the premiere conductor Arturo Toscanini included from it...Puccini had worked for nine months on the following concluding duet and at his death had left behind a whole ream of sketches....Alfano had to reconstruct ...according to his best assessment...and with his imagination and magnifying glass" since Puccini's material "had not really been legible."
[Konrad Dryden, cited supra, p. 33, adds that the project, reluctantly undertaken, resulted in "near blindness in his right eye, requiring three months spent in darkened rooms."]
Fogel: "Alfano's reputation has also suffered [IC:along with Mascagni], understandably, because of his willingness to associate himself closely with Mussolini's Fascist government."
Alex Ross, in an article in The New Yorker, February 27, 2006, pp. 84-85 notes a new ending composed by Luciano Berio premiered in 2002 [1] - this is preferred by some critics, for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot's change of heart, and of being more in keeping with Puccini's evolving technique.
Other works: Suite Adriatica; Intermezzi for Strings; Ninna-Nanna Partenopea.
Symphonies 1 and 2 [reviewed by Barry Brenesal in the same issue of Fanfare, pp. 103-4].
1925 Sonata for Cello and Piano world premiere recording by Cellist Samuel Magill and Pianist Scott Dunn on the Naxos label 1932 Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano World premiere recording by Violinist Elmira Darvarova, Cellist Samuel Magill and Pianist Scott Dunn on the Naxos label (2009)
Konrad Dryden: Franco Alfano, Transcending Turandot, (Scarecrow Press Inc., 2009)
   | Another page about Franco Alfano - Alfano, Franco - Musica Classica - Karadar Bertoldi Ensemble - Klassische Musik - Classical Music Dictionary |
| | Franco Alfano list of works - Franco Alfano's Chronology and Works |
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