Torrefranca, Fausto (Acanfora Sansone dei duchi di Porta e)

views updated

Torrefranca, Fausto (Acanfora Sansone dei duchi di Porta e)

Torrefranca, Fausto (Acanfora Sansone dei duchi di Porta e), eminent Italian musicologist; b. Monteleone Calabro, Feb. 1, 1883; d. Rome, Nov. 26, 1955. Trained as an engineer, he took up music under E. Lena in Turin (harmony and counterpoint) and also studied by himself. It was through his initiative that the first chair of musicology was established in Italy. In 1913 he became a lecturer at the Univ. of Rome; from 1914 to 1924, was a prof. of music history at the Cons. di S. Pietro in Naples, and from 1915, also librarian there; from 1924 to 1938, was librarian of the Milan Cons. From 1907 he was ed. of the Rivista Musicale Italiana. In 1941 he was appointed a prof, of music history at the Univ. of Florence.

Writings

La vita musicale dello spirito: La musica, le arti, il dramma (Turin, 1910); Giacomo Puccini e l’opera internazionale (Turin, 1912); Le origine italiane del romanticismo musicale: I primitivi della sonata moderna (Turin, 1930); II segreto del quattrocento: Musiche ariose e poesia popularesca (Milan, 1939).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

More From encyclopedia.com