Arnold Franchetti (1911–1993) was a composer born in

Lucca, Italy Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one ...

who later emigrated to the United States.

Early life

As a boy, Franchetti studied composition and piano with his father, Baron

Alberto Franchetti Alberto Franchetti (18 September 1860 – 4 August 1942) was an Italian composer, best known for the 1902 opera ''Germania''. Biography Alberto Franchetti was born in Turin, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice, th ...

(1860–1942). Baron Franchetti was a wealthy, well-respected and successful composer of the operas often performed at La Scala including ''Germania'' (performed by Enrico Caruso, conducted by

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orche ...

) and ''Christoforo Colombo''. Arnold Franchetti studied physics at the University of Florence, music at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and then moved to Munich from 1937 to 1939, where he studied composition and orchestration with composer

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic music, Romantic and early Modernism (music), modern eras, he has been descr ...

.Imanuel Willheim, "Franchetti, Arnold". Oxford Music Online. Accessed December 23, 2011. After a brief stint with the Italian army during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Franchetti joined the anti-Mussolini underground resistance in the Italian Alps where he helped Allied airmen escape.

In the USA

Franchetti emigrated to the US in 1947. He was befriended by

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

, who helped the young immigrant composer gain a professional footing by arranging performances of Franchetti's chamber music in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and Washington, D.C. Franchetti took a position at the Hartt School of Music, Hartford, Connecticut, in 1948, where he became chair of the theory and composition department, remaining there until his retirement in 1979. Franchetti's composition students have included: Barbara Kolb
Michael Schelle

Joel Pelletier Joel Pelletier (born 1961) is an American contemporary musician, painter, actor and political commentator. He is known for his version of Ensor's ''Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889''. Life Born in Massachusetts, Pelletier received a degree ...

, Robert Beaser, Jonathan Kramer, Martin Bresnick, film composers Jack Elliott, Ed Alton and Marcus Barone, Robert Lombardo, Henry Gwiazda, Norman Dinerstein, Gwynneth Van Anden Walker, Lee T. McQuillan and many others. During his 45 years in the United States, Franchetti received composition honors and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and many other prestigious organizations. He died on March 7, 1993, at Middlesex Hospital in

Cromwell, Connecticut Cromwell is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States located in the middle of the state. The population was 14,225 at the 2020 census. The town was named after a shipping boat that traveled along the Connecticut River, which runs a ...

Compositions

In his early works, Franchetti experimented with

late Romantic Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effe ...

and neoclassical styles, but he then developed what Imanuel Willheim called "a non-serial, 12-note compositional language featuring primarily diatonic motivic material". Franchetti composed music in all genres including orchestral, symphonic, chamber and solo music (including five piano sonatas, significant works that have been analyzed in multiple doctoral dissertations). Franchetti composed numerous theatre works including the opera, ''Married Men Go to Hell'' (1974) and the genre-bending ''Dracula 1979''. Another important Franchetti theatrical work is ''Lazarus'' (for narrator and symphonic wind ensemble) based on the book '' Soul on Ice'' by 1960's Black Panther activist

Eldridge Cleaver Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Cleaver wrote '' Soul on Ice'', a collection of essays that, at the time of i ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Franchetti, Arnold 1911 births 1993 deaths Musicians from Lucca University of Florence alumni Italian emigrants to the United States University of Hartford Hartt School faculty Franchetti family American male composers Italian male composers 20th-century American composers 20th-century Italian composers 20th-century Italian musicians 20th-century American male musicians