Stanislao Gastaldon

Musica proibita, published in 1881 when its composer was barely twenty, became a model of the Italian romanza da salotto, has been sung ever since, and has all but swallowed Stanislao Gastaldon. Born in Turin as Martino Stanislao Luigi Gastaldon, he studied there and in Florence with Antonio Creonti and the cathedral organist Torquato Meliani, read literature at the University of Florence, and occasionally supplied his own verses under the pen-name Flick-Flock. Behind the famous romanza lie many further songs, instrumental and choral works and several operas, among them Mala Pasqua!, drawn from the Verga story that also gave Mascagni his Cavalleria rusticana — and comprehensively eclipsed by it. He settled in Florence, teaching singing and writing criticism. He had settled in Florence permanently by 1900, and to the singing lessons and the criticism he added dealing in art; he died there in 1939, at seventy-seven.