Giuseppe Martucci

Italian composer Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909). In a life spanning just 53 years, Martucci achieved international fame as a concert pianist, a conductor, a teacher and as the man who encouraged a generation of Italian musicians to expand their horizons beyond the confines of the opera house. As a pianist he counted both Liszt and Anton Rubinstein amongst his greatest admirers, as a conductor he directed the Italian première of Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde', as a director of Bologna's Liceo Musicale his composition pupils included Ottorino Respighi, and through his promotion of the music of his northern European contemporaries he inspired the conductor Arturo Toscanini to become on of the most highly-regarded interpreters of European orchestral music of the 20th century. Martucci's output was relatively small - just 84 works with opus numbers and a dozen or so without.