Adolfo Fumagalli: Fantasia sopra alcuni motivi dell'opera "Nabuccodonosor" di Giuseppe Verdi, for Piano

Adolfo Fumagalli
(b Inzago, 19 Oct 1828; d Florence, 3 May 1856). Pianist and composer, brother of (1) Disma Fumagalli. After studying with the organist Gaetano Medaglia in Inzago and then at the Milan Conservatory from 23 November 1837 to 7 September 1847 under Pietro Ray (counterpoint) and Angeleri (piano), he made a successful début in Milan in 1848. He then embarked on a very well-received series of concert tours in the major cities of Italy, France and Belgium. In 1854 he returned to Italy, where he alternated between concert tours and composing until his death. He was considered the most gifted of the brothers and one of the principal virtuosos of the first half of the century. In Belgium he was called the ‘Paganini of the piano’ because of his technical mastery, especially in the left hand, and the brilliance and expressiveness of his tone. Rossini praised him for his cantabile playing, and the critic Filippo Filippi observed in him ‘the growing originality of ideas constructed most simply and most faultlessly, restraint in ornamentation …, freedom from the commonplace and banal’. Today his compositions, which number more than 100, seem rather loosely constructed and mannered salon pieces, in spite of their idiomatic piano writing and their merit as studies.