Life
Trained at the height of Verdian Romanticism, his very long mature career took place in the complex climate of the Fin de siècle, an era where the poetics of Realism, Verismo, and the new sensitivity of Decadentism coexisted.
Giovanni Caramiello was born in Naples in 1838. He studied harp with Filippo Scotti at the Conservatory of his city. In 1886 he succeeded his colleague Felice Lebano as harp professor at the same institution, where he taught until 1915, training generations of musicians.
His family was linked to music: his brother Sebastiano was also a harpist. Caramiello dedicated himself to composing pieces for harp and pedagogical works, earning a reputation as a master and pedagogue. He was a point of reference for the Neapolitan musical environment for over half a century.
He died in Naples in 1938, nearly a centenarian, having left a significant legacy in the training of young harpists and in enriching the pedagogical repertoire for the instrument.
Aneddoto
A long life for the harp
Caramiello lived nearly a hundred years, witnessing the musical evolution of two centuries, always faithful to his instrument, the harp.Works
He composed numerous works for harp, intended for both concert and study: variations, fantasies, characteristic pieces. He wrote pedagogical works used by students of the Conservatory of Naples and also published theoretical writings. His compositions remained a reference for the teaching of the instrument until the twentieth century.
Briciole di storia
An idea born from a massacre
On June 24, 1859, during the Second War of Independence, the bloody Battle of Solferino and San Martino was fought. In a single day, the Franco-Piedmontese and Austrian armies left nearly 40,000 men dead or wounded on the field. By chance, a Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant was in the area. Appalled by the sight of thousands of agonizing soldiers abandoned to themselves without any care, he organized the first relief efforts with the help of local women, without making any distinction of nationality. Back in Geneva, he wrote A Memory of Solferino, a book in which he proposed the creation of voluntary and neutral relief societies to assist the war-wounded. From that idea, born in the horror of that battle, the International Red Cross would be founded in 1863.
Pubblico dominio (Commons)
