Mario Paci
Mario Paci (born June 4, 1878 in Florence , † August 3, 1946 in Shanghai ) was an Italian pianist and conductor who had a decisive influence on the fact that classical European music is now very well known and popular in China .
Life
Paci attended the Conservatory in Naples and won the Liszt Prize in 1895. He then went on extensive tours across Europe . Thanks to Giacomo Puccini's intercession , he was later able to study composition and conducting at the Milan Conservatory .
In December 1918 Paci came to Shanghai to give a few piano recitals in the city's Olympic Theater, but became so ill that he had to be hospitalized. For various reasons he finally stayed in Shanghai and in 1919 took over the direction of what is now the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra , the oldest symphony orchestra in Asia, which was founded in 1879 as a military brass band. Paci succeeded in enlarging the orchestra from 22 to 37 members and gave the first symphony concert in Shanghai on November 23, 1919 , which was also the first on the Asian continent. The program included Beethoven's 5th Symphony , the string serenade “In the Far West” by Granville Bantock and Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 .
In 1922 the orchestra was renamed the Shanghai Municipal Council Symphony Orchestra. The audience initially consisted exclusively of around 20,000 foreigners living in Shanghai, as the Chinese were not allowed to attend the concerts. Paci's persistent discussions with the city fathers ultimately led to this regulation being increasingly relaxed. This also applied to the orchestra itself, which originally consisted only of Europeans.
It is also thanks to Paci's advocacy that a "National Vocational School for Music" (Guoli Shanghai Yinyue Zhuanke Xuexiao) was founded in Shanghai in 1927, today's Shanghai Conservatory of Music (Shanghai Yinyue Xueyuan). The institute founded by Cai Yuanpei and Xiao Youmei was Asia's first music college. From 1940 the German composer Wolfgang Fraenkel (1897–1983), who fled Germany in 1938 , was one of the teachers and members of the orchestra .
A highlight in the history of the orchestra was the Chinese premiere of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on April 14, 1936 , in which numerous Chinese performed under Paci's direction, albeit not among the singers.
With the beginning of the Second World War and the Japanese occupation , the situation for the orchestra became increasingly difficult. So Paci was finally forced to give a farewell concert on May 31, 1942 and to disband the orchestra. It was only re-established after the war, in October 1950, and has been known as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 1956.
literature
- Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese , New York 2004, ISBN 0-87586-179-2
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Paci, Mario |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian pianist and conductor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 4, 1878 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Florence |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 3, 1946 |
| Place of death | Shanghai |