The son of Vincenzo Falchi and Teresa Lazzari, Stanislao Falchi may well have developed his musical interests at the chemist’s shop that his family had managed in Terni at least since 1835. Very centrally situated right behind Palazzo Spada, the shop was an important meeting point in the town, especially for the musicians of the Società Filarmonica. Stanislao began his musical studies with Celestino Magi at the local music school (the Civiche Scuole di Musica), but at a very early age he moved to Rome and completed his training with Salvatore Meluzzi. And it was in the capital city that his entire career unfolded, stretching from his debut conducting at the Teatro Apollo as a replacement for Luigi Mancinelli (in 1875) right up to his time as director of the Liceo Musicale di Santa Cecilia, a position that was unanimously conferred on him (in 1902) and that he retained, along with his teaching of composition, until 1915. As an eminent teacher, his pupils included musicians of the calibre of Vittorio Gui, Licinio Refice, Adriano Lualdi and Vincenzo Tommasini, whereas as the director of what was to become the Santa Cecilia Conservatoire, he substantially advanced the development of the institution by providing it with a new set of rules and regulations and modernizing the curriculum. However, his commitment to teaching, which he always honoured with the utmost dedication, did not prevent him, at least until the early years of the 20th century, from making a name for himself also as an orchestral conductor and composer.
Falchi was a leading figure in that “Roman school” which attempted to revitalize the backward state of Italian musical production at the turn of the century. And he was a man greatly admired by Verdi, who described his conducting as “marvellous”; indeed he conducted many of the composer’s Roman premieres (Laudi alla Vergine, Stabat Mater, Te Deum, Requiem). His repertoire included, as well as his own works, pieces from the Classical and Romantic periods (Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Weber), a few singular incursions into earlier literatures (Palestrina and Carissimi, incidentally also publishing a successful revision of the latter’s oratorio Jephte), and certain important Roman and Italian premieres. For example, he was the first to conduct Wagner’s works in Rome, and his was the first Italian performance of Saint-Saëns’s oratorio Le Déluge.
As an opera composer, Falchi had his debut in 1878 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome with Lorhèlia (on a libretto by Pietro Calvi, and conducted by Luigi Mancinelli): a Nordic legend of a decidedly Wagnerian flavour that was only moderately appreciated by the critics. He fared better in 1887 at the Teatro Apollo, again in Rome, with his Giuditta (libretto by Brigiuti and Mancini, conductor Edoardo Mascheroni), a work closer to the model of the Verdi “choral opera”. In spite of a fierce attack from D’Annunzio (in the pages of “La Tribuna”, 14-15 March 1887), the opera was repeated at the Teatro Morlacchi in Perugia and the Liceu in Barcelona. Complete success was achieved with his third and last opera, Il Trillo del diavolo (The Devil’s Trill), with a fine libretto by Ugo Fleres inspired by the fictionalized life of Giuseppe Tartini. It was given its first performance in 1899 at the Teatro Argentina, again with Mascheroni conducting, and was then immediately repeated not only in various Italian theatres (Brescia, Ferrara, Novara, Costanzi in Rome, La Fenice in Venice, Carlo Felice in Genoa, Pergola in Florence), but even at the Zizinia Theatre in Alexandria (Egypt) and at the theatres of Smyrna and Fiume. The opera was also, finally, triumphantly received in his home town of Terni, where it was performed in 1901 with Giuseppe Cerquetelli conducting.
In addition, Falchi was the composer of large-scale orchestral music and symphonic-choral works, such an Ouverture al Giulio Cesare di Shakespeare, La siesta de la Señorita, Ave Caesar and Coro per il IV centenario della nascita di Raffaello Sanzio, as well as a highly respected Messa da Requiem for voices only, performed at the Pantheon in 1883 for the funeral of King Victor Emmanuel II. And to conclude, he produced a significant corpus of twenty-seven chamber romances published by Ricordi and Lucca between the mid-1870s and the end of the century. Falchi’s romances, which are refined, elegant and admirably expressive, can be positioned midway between adherence to an ongoing tradition and the need for change which, beginning with the so-called “Generation of the Eighties”, aimed to free the genre from its subordination to opera and all sorts of “provincialisms”. So while the genesis of these short pieces is for the most part “occasional”, as Falchi couldn’t help pointing out with a series of dedications (to Queen Margherita, to the most illustrious noblewomen of his home town, to his “ami Francesco Paolo” [Tosti], and to the singers Mattia Battistini and Antonio Cotogni), his choice of literary texts often reflects a sophistication worthy of note. No longer the “insipid” and “fatuous” verses that Ildebrando Pizzetti identified as being those preferred by the “specialists” of the genre, but the lofty poetry of Victor Hugo, Byron and Heinrich Heine, even in the original language. He introduces a European dimension, therefore, anticipating by a few years a renewal of the genre that could no longer be postponed and that was to characterize the preferences of many composers of the next generation. In his choice of Italian poets, alongside his friends Raffaele Salustri and Francesco Mancini, we also find Arrigo Boito and Giosuè Carducci. On the other hand, Gabriele D’Annunzio (the virulent detractor of Falchi’s music), a figure who unquestionably played a central role at this stage of the history of the Italian romance, is here repaid with resounding indifference.
Also included among the group of published romances are four duets, the exceptional case of the Preludio to the album Polychordon (dedicated to Queen Margherita, 1886) for piano, accompanied by the recitation of verses by Raffaele Salustri, and two pieces with violin ad libitum, a further sign of unconventional creativity. The substitution of the violin with the flute in this piece, on the other hand, was the work of Filippo Franceschini (1841-1915), a distinguished flautist and teacher who taught at the Santa Cecilia institution during Falchi’s directorship.
Falchi was thus a central figure in the cultural life of Rome at the turn of the century, one who was surrounded by unanimous esteem and admiration. He was the recipient of many honours (Cavaliere e Grande Ufficiale decorato dal Re, Commendatore della Corona d’Italia, Cavaliere Ufficiale dei SS. Maurizio e Lazzaro, Knight of the French Légion d’Honneur) and was appointed member of the executive committee for the Universal Exposition of 1911. In 1901 he was made a “meritorious citizen” of Terni. And it was to his native city that he gave a final example of the generosity that had distinguished his life as a man and artist, when he designated the charitable organisation of the Congregazione di Carità as his universal heir, while asking in exchange to be buried in the city’s cemetery. His property – the chemist’s shop, his birthplace and his library (of 958 volumes) – are today part of the city of Terni’s heritage.
Silvia Paparelli © 2021
English translation by Hugh Ward-Perkins
Falchi: Ore Poetiche, Vocal and Flute Music
