(b Paderno Fasolaro [now Paderno Ponchielli], 31 Aug 1834; d Milan, 16 Jan 1886). Italian composer. After studying at the Milan Conservatory he settled in the provinces as an organist and municipal band conductor, repeatedly attempting to establish himself as an opera composer. He finally won success in1872 with the much-revised I promessi sposi, in1874 with the Ricordi commission I lituani and above all in1876 with La Gioconda. As professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory (from 1880) he taught Puccini and, briefly, Mascagni. He also composed much sacred music for S Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. Of his works, only La Gioconda, on a text drawn by Boito from Hugo, is in the modern repertory. An inspired stylization of grand opera, it contains music that is alive, varied and sensitive, notably the tenor romanza ‘Cielo e mar’ and the famous ‘Suicidio’, and that foreshadows aspects of late Verdi and of verismo opera. Elsewhere Ponchielli's atmospheric colouring and symphonic treatment (I lituani, Il figliuol prodigo) show remarkable imagination and workmanship, despite his lack of a strong personality.
Ponchielli, Amilcare (ämēlkä'rā pōngkyĕl'lē), 1834-86, Italian composer of several very successful operas. Only La Gioconda (1876), with libretto by Boito after Hugo's Angelo, is still performed.
Amilcare Ponchielli was an important nineteenth century Italian composer, primarily of operas. He is best known for his 1876 La Gioconda, though he wrote other significant operas, as well as ballets, orchestral, chamber music, and various vocal works. He was a rare example of a meek, but immensely talented, artist, whose backward nature sabotaged his career in certain respects. He had a vivid imagination, an uncanny ability to express varied situations and emotions, and superior orchestrational skills. If he had a weakness in his artistic makeup, it was his inconsistency of inspiration. In the end, he must be ranked a truly gifted composer who might have achieved the front rank were it not for his humble and kind demeanor, and lack of personal ambition. Actually, only Verdi stood above him among Italian composers of the day, but considerably above him. Other works of significance in Ponchielli's œuvre are I promessi sposi, his first opera, and Marion Delorme, his last. He was also an important teacher, his students included Puccini and Mascagni.
Ponchielli was born in Paderno Fasolaro (now Paderno Ponchielli), Italy, on August 31, 1834. His father was a good amateur organist who gave young Amilcare his first lessons. After showing remarkable advancement, he began study with an organist from a nearby village. At the age of nine, Ponchielli was taken into the Milan Conservatory, where he would remain, tuition free, for 11 years. There he began study with Arturo Angeleri on piano and Pietro Ray in music theory. At age 10, the precocious Ponchielli wrote a symphony in piano score.
In 1851, he began instruction in composition with Felice Frasi, and was already delving into opera. His first flirtation with it came when he collaborated with three other students in the 1851 effort, Il sindaco babbeo. After graduating from the Conservatory in 1854, Ponchielli took an organist position at a church in Cremona, not far from his native Paderno. The following year, he became assistant to the director of the Teatro Concordia. It was here that his first opera, the aforementioned I promessi sposi, was staged in 1856 with some success. Over the next 15 years, Ponchielli struggled to achieve a significant triumph, but his operas either failed (sometimes to even reach the stage) or had success only in provincial opera houses.
In 1864, he became conductor of the Cremona municipal band and started work on his ballet, Grisetta (1864-1865). While it was a mild success, he wanted to focus his attention on opera. Eventually he returned to I promessi sposi, which scored a success in its revised version in Milan in 1872. Soon it was taken up by many other theaters in Italy, and in the meantime Ponchielli found an ally in the publishing world when Ricordi began issuing his music scores. In addition, his recently composed ballet, Le due gemelle, was staged at La Scala in 1873 and scored a major success.
Ponchielli had now emerged as one of the leading composers in Italy. In 1874 he married soprano Teresina Brambilla. Together they had three children. Ponchielli's reputation was bolstered further in 1876 by his greatest triumph, La gioconda, with libretto by Arrigo Boito. The work would be taken up by opera houses all over Europe, as far away as St. Petersburg, where Ponchielli would attend performances in 1884. In 1880, following further successes, he was appointed head of composition at the Milan Conservatory and, in 1881, maestro di cappella at the Bergamo Cathedral. He died five years later, on January 17, 1886. ~ Robert Cummings, All Music Guide
Two years after leaving the conservatory he wrote his first opera -- it was based on Alessandro Manzoni's great novel I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) -- and it was as an opera composer that he eventually found fame.
His early career was disappointing. Maneuvered out of a professorship at the Milan Conservatory that he had won in a competition, he took small-time jobs in small cities, and composed several operas, none successful at first. In spite of his disappointment, he gained much experience as the "capobanda" in Piacenza and Cremona, arranging and composing over 200 works for wind band. Notable among his "original" compositions for band are the first-ever concerto for euphonium (Concerto per Flicornobasso, 1872), fifteen variations on the Neapolitan song "Carnevale di Venezia", and a series of festive and funeral marches that resound with the pride of the newly unified Italy and the private grief of his fellow Cremonese. The turning point was the big success of the revised version of I promessi sposi in 1872, which brought him a contract with the music publisher G. Ricordi & Co. and the musical establishment at the Conservatory and at La Scala. The ballet Le due gemelle (1873) confirmed his success.
The following opera, I Lituani (The Lithuanians) (1874), was also well received, being performed later at Saint Petersburg (as Aldona - November 20, 1884). His best known opera is La Gioconda, which his librettist Arrigo Boito adapted from the same play by Victor Hugo that had been previously set by Mercadante (Il Giuramento, 1837) and Carlos Gomes (Fosca, 1873). It was first produced in 1876 and revised several times. The version that has become so popular today was first given in 1880.
In 1876 he started working on I mori di Valenza (the project dates back to 1873), an opera he never finished, although it was completed later by Arturo Cadore and performed posthumously in 1914.
After La Gioconda, Ponchielli wrote the monumental biblical melodrama in four acts Il figliuol prodigo (Milan, Teatro alla Scala, December 26, 1880) and Marion Delorme, from another play by Victor Hugo (Milan, Teatro alla Scala, March 17, 1885). In spite of their rich musical invention, neither of these operas met with the same success but both exerted great influence on the composers of the rising generation, like Puccini, Mascagni and Giordano.
In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Cathedral, and from the same year he was a professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where among his students were Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni.
Although in his lifetime Ponchielli was very popular and influential, in introducing an enlarged orchestra and more complex orchestration, the only one of his operas regularly performed today is La Gioconda. It contains the great tenor romanza "Cielo e mar", a superb duet for tenor and baritone "Enzo Grimaldo" [1], the soprano set-piece "Suicidio!" and the ballet music "The Dance of the Hours", known even to the non-musical from its use in Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940), the UK hit single 'Like I Do' by Maureen Evans (1962), burlesques by Allan Sherman ("Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", 1963), in the children's record Gossamer Wump (released in 1949 by Capitol Records), and Spike Jones (1949), and, to a lesser degree, the 1966 Perrey and Kingsley song, "Countdown To 6."
^ Faulkner, Anne Shaw: What we hear in music, p.542, Kessinger Publishing (2005) ISBN 1419168053
Bibliography
Kaufman: Annals of Italian Opera: Verdi and his Major Contemporaries; Garland Publishing, New York and London, 1990. (contains premiere casts and performance histories of Ponchielli's operas)
