Carlo Coccia (1782-1873)
- Sinfonia in sol maggiore
Performers: Orchestra Carlo Coccia; Gianna Fratta (conductor)
Further info: Carlo Coccia (1782-1873)
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Italian composer. The son of a violinist in the S Carlo orchestra in
Naples, he showed an early disposition for music and at the age of ten
was admitted to the S Maria de Loreto Conservatory, where his teachers
included Saverio Valente (singing) and Fedele Fenaroli (counterpoint).
After leaving, he continued his studies with Paisiello, who procured for
him the post of piano accompanist to the private concerts of Joseph
Bonaparte, King of Naples (1806-08). His first opera, Il matrimonio per
lettera di cambio (1807, Rome), failed; but, encouraged by Paisiello,
his persistence was rewarded with the success of Il poeta fortunato
(1808, Florence). During the next decade he produced 20 operas, mostly
for the smaller theatres of Venice, where he entered into unequal
competition with the young Rossini; and it was not until after the
latter's departure for Naples that he won general acclaim with Clotilde
(1815, Venice). A semiseria opera in the traditional Neapolitan style,
it has something of the melancholy sweetness of Paisiello and was much
praised for its treatment of the chorus as an active participant in the
drama. Coccia's subsequent attempts to come to terms with Rossinian
floridity met with little success, and in 1820 he accepted an invitation
to Lisbon as composer and musical director at the S Carlos theatre.
From Portugal he proceeded to London in 1824 to occupy a similar post at
the King's Theatre. His appointment as professor of singing and harmony
at the newly founded RAM brought him into contact with the German
classics, his study of which bore fruit in the opera Maria Stuart,
regina de Scozia (1827), composed for Giuditta Pasta.
Based, like Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, on Schiller's play, it adheres
far more closely to the original and is thus clogged with a
superabundance of characters, which makes for a slow dramatic pace and
an unwieldy overall structure. Returning to Italy in 1828, he persevered
in his aim to graft Germanic subtlety of harmony on to the prevailing
post-Rossinian style. Again the critics were respectful and the public
stayed away. He did, however, gain a genuine triumph with Caterina de
Guisa (1833, Milan; revised 1836, Turin), aided by a finely paced
libretto by Felice Romani. But it was a solitary moment of glory. In
1835 Bellini wondered at Coccia's ability to secure commissions, since
there was ‘nothing left in his brain’. After the failure of Il lago
delle fate (1841, Turin) he gave up operatic composition to devote
himself to church music. In 1836 Coccia was nominated director of the
new singing school of the Accademia Filharmonica, Turin, passing thence
to Novara, where he succeeded Mercadante as maestro di cappella at the
church of S Gaudenzio. He was sufficiently eminent to be invited to
contribute a ‘Lachrymosa’ to the collaborative requiem mass for Rossini
set up at Verdi's instigation in 1868. Here his idiom could be described
as ‘sophisticated Donizetti’: an unaccompanied men's chorus with the
flavour of a Neapolitan popular song followed by a ‘learned’ fugue for
full choir, its counterpoint diluted by homophonic sequences. Active
till the last, he died on the eve of his 91st birthday.
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