Stanislao Gastaldon

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Stanislao Gastaldon (b. Torino, Italy, 1861- d. 1939). Italian composer primarily of light music. Today, however, he is remembered almost exclusively for the operatic aria known popularly as Musica proibita, still one of the most popular pieces of music in Italy. It has been performed and recorded countless times and, indeed, most listeners are not even aware that it is from Gastaldon’s opera Mala Pasqua!, a work from 1890 based on Giovanni Verga’s short story Cavalleria rusticana. That work also provided the raw material for Mascagni’s opera, Cavalleria rusticana. Both Gastaldon’s and Mascagni’s operas were composed to be entered in the same music competition sponsored by the publishing house, Sonzogno, in 1890, a contest eventually won by Mascagni’s work.

The aria/song Musica proibita, besides being popular in Italy was the basis for the song "O Promise Me", in the US American musical, Robin Hood, from the 1890s. Gastaldon wrote across a wide variety of music and popular novels and plays. His eclecticism included setting to music in the 1880s some poems by his contemporary Lorenzo Stecchetti (pseudonym of Orlindo Guerrini) and, in 1906, one of Dante’s sonnets, Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare, sung by a tenor in the role of Dante, surrounded by scenery depicting Florence of the 14th century.

[edit] Sources

• Klein, John W. "Pietro Mascagni and Giovanni Verga", in Music & Letters, Vol. 44, No. 4, (Oct., 1963) pp. 350-357.
• "Gastaldon, Stanislao." Entry in Enciclopedia Moderna Italiana, pub. Sozogno, Milan, 1936.
• The Musical Times, Vol. 48, No. 767, (Jan. 1, 1907) pp. 5-52