Life
Trained in the heart of Romanticism, his long career led him to reach full artistic maturity during the period of post-unification Realism.
Alessandro Capanna was born in Osimo in 1814 and trained in various cities, including Fermo, Assisi, Jesi, Loreto, and Bologna. A Conventual Franciscan, he combined his religious vocation with intense musical commitment. In Bologna, he was an Honorary and Full Master of the Accademia Filarmonica, where he dedicated himself to composition and the teaching of harmony and counterpoint.
Between 1860 and 1867, he was the chapel master at the Cathedral of Šibenik. Subsequently, he briefly took over the direction of the Cappella Antoniana in Padua but was dismissed due to a mass based on themes from Mozart's Don Giovanni. From 1855 until his death in 1892, he lived permanently in Bologna, which he considered his "favorite city."
He was the author of theatrical works such as La Sposa d’Abido, Lodovico il Moro, and Luchino Visconti, in addition to a vast sacred corpus of masses, psalms, and hymns. He also pursued historiographical interests, writing biographies of French musicians. His musical library, left to the convent of San Francesco in Bologna, includes over a thousand manuscripts.
Aneddoto
A Mass on Don Giovanni
Capanna lost his position as master of the Cappella Antoniana because he had composed a mass based on themes from Mozart's Don Giovanni: an episode that reveals his artistic audacity.Works
Capanna wrote operas such as La Sposa d’Abido, Lodovico il Moro, and Luchino Visconti. His sacred production is vast, numbering over one hundred masses and numerous psalms and hymns, which circulated in the churches of the Marche and Emilia regions. The library he left in Bologna preserves a large part of his musical and theoretical legacy.