Alberto Favara (1863-1923), an Italian

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

, is one of the pioneers of the scholarly study of Sicilian folk music. He studied at the Palermo Conservatory and later in Milan. In 1895 he became a music professor at the Palermo Conservatory. In 1907 he published ''Canti della terra e del mare di Sicilia'' (Songs of the land and sea of Sicily), followed in 1921 by an additional collection of ''Canti popolari siciliani'' (Sicilian Folk Songs). Favara was also the composer of miscellaneous vocal works and instrumental pieces for orchestra and chamber groups. The full extent of Favara's groundbreaking work as a collector of Sicilian

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

s was not known until 1957, 34 years after his death, when a complete collection of 1,090 folk songs, transcribed into music notation by Favara, were published in the two volume set ''Corpus di Musichi Populari Siciliane''; a work edited by Ottavio Tiby.

References

1863 births 1923 deaths Academic staff of the Palermo Conservatory Italian musicologists Palermo Conservatory alumni {{Italy-music-bio-stub