The recent Italian group has shown great zeal in pushing itself forward. The old disdain of foreign styles has given way to a general effort to imitate the Wagnerian technique in orchestration and to achieve intense dramatic success. The warm abundance of melody is usually conspicuous, but few writers evince ability for sustained or intricate construction. Instead, there has been a notable prominence of short, rapidly-moving works, often explicitly 'veristic' in plot and treatment. The opera is still the goal of musical ambition for most musicians, but attention to orchestral and chamber music is becoming steadily greater and more fruitful.
The number of Italian composers who have won international recognition
for many works is small; among those who are most prominent are the
following:—
Arrigo Boito of Milan, born in 1842, with 4 operas, the best of which is Mefistofele (1868-75), some cantatas and many fine librettos; the pianist Giovanni Sgambati, born in 1843, with 3 symphonies, a piano-concerto, chamber music and piano-pieces; Antonio Smareglia, born in 1854, with 8 operas (from 1879), including Il vassallo di Szigeth (1889), a symphonic poem and songs; Giuseppe Martucci of Bologna (d. 1909), born in 1856, a student of German methods, with a symphony, a piano-concerto and chamber music; Giacomo Puccini of Milan, born in 1858, with 6 strong operas (from 1884), including La Bohème (1896, Turin), Tosca (1900, Rome) and Madama Butterfly (1904, Milan), a mass and chamber works; Ruggiero Leoncavallo, born in 1858, a good pianist, with 8 operas (from 1889), especially Pagliacci (1892, Milan), Tommaso Chatterton (1896, Rome) and Der Roland von Berlin (1904, Berlin); Pietro Floridia of Milan, born in 1860, also a pianist, with 3 operas (from 1882), such as Maruzza (1894, Venice), a symphony and other orchestral and piano works; Alberto Franchetti, born in 1860, with 5 operas, beginning with Asraele (1888, Brescia), a symphony and chamber pieces; Spiro Samara, born in 1861, with 6 operas, the first of which was Flora mirabilis (1886, Milan); the conspicuous organist Enrico Bossi of Bologna, born in 1861, with strong chamber works, cantatas, church music and symphonic poems, besides 3 operas; Pietro Mascagni, born in 1863, whose phenomenally successful Cavalleria rusticana (1890, Rome) has been followed by several more; Crescenzo Buongiorno (d. 1903), with about 15 operas and operettas (from 1887), the last three in Germany; Umberto Giordano, born in 1867, with 5 operas (from 1892), including Andrea Chenier (1896, Milan); and, standing apart from all these, Lorenzo Perosi, born in 1872, who has made a name by writing many masses and several oratorios of some power (from 1897).
The recent English group has contained several strikingly
able writers, whose work has pushed out into every field of
composition. Their activity has been the more notable because
