Leone Massimo

Leone Massimo, 5th Prince of Arsoli (full name Leone Enrico Giuseppe Siegfried Lelio Principe Massimo, 5th Principe di Arsoli ; born January 25, 1896 in Rome , † May 4, 1979 ibid) was an Italian nobleman and composer.

Life

He came from the Massimo family and was the son of Camillo Francesco Massimo, Prince of Arsoli (1865-1943), and Eleonora Brancaccio. Since 1935 he was married to Maria Adelaide of Savoy-Genoa (1904–1979). The marriage had six children. First Duke of Anticoli Corrado , in 1943, after the death of his father, he became 5th Prince of Arsoli . The Castello Massimo in Arsoli was in his possession and still belongs to his heirs.

Leone Massimo was active as a composer. In Rome he was a student of Ottorino Respighi , in Munich of Walter Courvoisier and in Paris of Charles Koechlin . In 1920 he obtained the “ Laurea in lettere” at the Regia Università in Rome with his work La descrizione musicale nei madrigali profani del Palestrina, del Marenzio e del Gesualdo . In the 1920s and 30s, Leone Massimo was a well-known face in the composing circles of Paris and Rome. In 1928 Henri Sauguet dedicated the third movement of his composition "Feuillets d'album" to Leone Massimo. In 1931 the violinist Yvonne de Casa-Fuerte founded a concert society in Paris to promote contemporary classical music. The association was named "La Serenade" and founding members were Vittorio Rieti , Darius Milhaud , Henri Sauguet, Roger Désormière , Nicolas Nabokov , Igor Markevitch and Leone Massimo. The first concert of this company took place on December 1, 1931 and included a. the world premiere of the "Serenade for 2 violins" by Leone Massimo. In 1924 the Countess Anna Laetitia Pecci Blunt founded a similar concert company in Rome called "I Concerti di Primavera". The aim was again to perform selected contemporary composers. In addition to Leone Massimo, the founding members were Vittorio Rieti, Mario Labroca and Goffredo Petrassi . During the Second World War, Leone Massimo gave his composer colleague Luigi Dallapiccola accommodation in his villa in Fiesole. Dallapiccola thanked him for this with the composition "Frammenti Sinfonici dal Balletto Marsia ", which is dedicated to Leone Massimo. After 1945, Leone Massimo was a regular guest with his compositions at the Biennale di Venezia , a festival for contemporary music. From 1958 to 1968 he taught music history at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome.

He was also the secret chamberlain, with sword and cloak , and postmaster general of the Vatican , responsible for the Vatican Post and for the Pope's trips outside Rome, an office that had been entrusted to the firstborn of the Massimo family since 1769. After the abolition of the office of Soprintendente Generale delle Poste in 1968, he became a consultor for the Vatican State.

In 1958 he received the Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon from the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a knight of the Order of Constantine .

Works

Fonts

• Breve storia della musica occidentale. Corso di storia della musica per gli allievi dei corsi di regia, scenografia, costume e direzione di produione. Centro sperimentale di cinematografia, Rome 1957.

Compositions (selection)

• La donna. Canto e pianoforte based on a text by Osvaldo Brancaleoni (1918). Published by Ricordi.
• Suite for violin and piano (1922)
• Serenade for 2 violins (1931)
• String quartet (before 1933)
• Sonata for cello and piano (before 1933)
• Quatre chansonettes , for voice and string quartet (before 1933)
• Concerto grosso (1934)
• Divertimento for small orchestra (1940). Published by Carisch.
• De Sancto Francisco , for voice and 9 instruments (1940)
• Alfabeto Ballet (1941)
• Otto epigrammi , for voice and 5 string instruments (1949)
• Elogio della Poesia , for soprano and 8 instruments to a text by Libero de Libero (1956)
• Due sonetti del Tasso , for voice and piano (1959)
• Tre Fantasie , for orchestra (1959)
• Sonata for flute, violin and piano
• Suite for piano

literature

• Alberto De Angelis: L'Italia musicale d'oggi. Dizionario dei musicisti: compositori - direttori d'orchestra - concertisti - insegnanti - liutai - cantanti - scrittori musicali - librettisti - editori musicali - ecc .. 3rd edition Ausonia, Rome 1928.
• Dizionario enciclopedico universale della musica e dei musicisti . Le biography. Vol. 4, UTET Turin 1986, p. 712 (with a list of his compositions).

Web links

• Associazione culturale Leone Massimo (with picture)
• Biography in English, free sheet music

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Leone Massimo, 5th Principe di Arsoli on thepeerage.com , accessed September 18, 2016.
2. ^ German translation of the Motu proprio Pontificalis domus of March 28, 1968 , III. 7. §3;
3. ^ The Pope Opens The Holy Door.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Catholic Herald, Dec. 30, 1949, p. 8.  
4. ^ Carpegna Falconieri: Massimo, Francesco (Camillo VII) . Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 72 (2008)
5. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 10, No. 110, June 12, 1958.
6. ^ The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George. Necrologies (from 1969) ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 19, 2013 
7. ↑ https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/mr/massimo-leone/
8. ↑ https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/mr/massimo-leone/