Life
Trained during the final phase of Romanticism, his long career led him to reach full maturity in the early 20th century, an era of avant-gardes where the aestheticism of Decadentism, the suggestions of Symbolism, and the radical disruption of Futurism coexisted.
Carlo Cattanei was born in Piacenza in 1851 to Achille and Maria Manara. He studied at the Maria Luigia Boarding School in Parma and later perfected his studies in Milan, where he followed courses in composition and piano with Giovanni Quacquerini. From a young age, he showed a brilliant talent that led him to perform publicly and to often use the pseudonym K. Walewska.
After a period in Turin (1881–1890) as a singing and piano teacher, he worked in Nice and finally in Genoa. His compositions, refined and melodic in style, were published by Ricordi, Serra, Tedeschi, and Hug Frères, attesting to the European spread of his music.
As a pianist, he was appreciated for his virtuosity and interpretive sensitivity, while as a composer, he wrote numerous pieces for piano and voice. He died in Genoa in 1933, leaving a varied corpus that reflects the Milanese school of composition to which he belonged.
Aneddoto
The pseudonym K. Walewska
For many of his performances, he chose the pseudonym K. Walewska, a female name that intrigued the audience and helped create an aura of mystery.Works
Among his best-known works are the Melodie intime (1887) for voice and piano, dedicated to the famous soprano Virginia Ferni Germano, and the Spettro Solare, a piano suite dedicated to Alfredo Edel and published by Röder in Leipzig. He also composed Incantesimo, a multi-structured waltz published in Genoa in 1904, and the mazurka Ricordo di Castelvetro Piacentino, dedicated to his friend Severino Stezzi.
Other tracks include Brindisi, a macabre melody for tenor or soprano; Tramonto and Estasi on verses by Diego Garoglio; Le moroir, to a text by Edmond Haraucourt; Zitella, a canzonetta for mezzo-soprano; Al lago, a serenade on verses by Cesare Lisei; Un fiore; Suite Passionée, dedicated to Hélène Vuillet; Studio romantico, dedicated to Luisa Cognetti; Frammento d’un romanzo senza parole; the Polacca brillante; and the Improvvisata – Veux tu.
His music was performed in Italy and abroad and recently rediscovered: in 2009, the “G. Nicolini” Conservatory of Piacenza included his Spettro Solare in a CD dedicated to Piacentine composers.
Briciole di storia
Mazzini's death in exile
On March 10, 1872, in a house in Pisa, Giuseppe Mazzini died. The apostle of united Italy, the mind and soul of the Risorgimento, passed away paradoxically as a fugitive in the very homeland he had helped to create. He lived under the false English name of George Brown because a death sentence imposed by the Kingdom of Sardinia still hung over his head. His death embarrassed the government, as such a massive figure could not be ignored, but nor could a staunch republican be celebrated. Parliament voted for official condolences, but his funeral in Genoa was a massive and almost entirely republican demonstration. That was the bitter and contradictory end of a man whose ideas had been the spark of Unification, but who had never recognized himself in the monarchical State that was born from it.
Pubblico dominio (Commons)
