Serenata

Enrico Toselli was twenty when he published the Serenata, opus 6, in 1900 under the title Rimpianto, regret. Italian words were added later by Alfredo Silvestri, and the piece has circulated ever since in every possible arrangement: voice and piano, violin, salon orchestra, mandolin. Toselli's own life supplied the rest of its fame; in 1907 he married the former crown princess of Saxony, a scandal that cost her position and custody of her children and made his name known far beyond music. He wrote little else that survived.