Person

Denza, Luigi

1846-1922

Italian composer Luigi Denza was born in Castellamare di Stabia near Naples, the son of an amateur musician and friend of Rossini. He studied composition at the Naples Conservatorio de Musica San Pietro a Maiella, with Saverio Mercadente; Mercadante’s pupil Paolo Serrao taught him harmony and counterpoint. Among his classmates was Giorgio Tosti, who was also to become a famous songwriter. Denza became a sub-professor at the conservatory in 1866. He also composed both songs and works for the mandolin and guitar. In 1876, his four-act opera “Wallenstein” (with a libretto by A. Bruner), based on the Schiller play, was performed at the Teatro Mercadante in Naples. His best-known song was “Funiculi, funicula,” a song with a tarantella rhythm and lyrics by journalist Giuseppe “Peppino” Turco, composed in 1880 in celebration of the new funicular on Mt. Vesuvius. The song sold a million copies within a year. Teen-age composer Johann Strauss unwittingly used it in a symphony, thinking it was just a Neapolitan folksong, but was successfully sued by Denza, who held the copyright. In 1884, he moved to London, and it is there that he wrote most of his almost 500 songs, many of them sung by stars like Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, and Luciano Pavarotti. He was a director of the London Academy of Music and in 1898 became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He lived in London for 40 years, until the end of his life.