Francesco Florimo

Francesco Florimo (12 October 1800 – 18 December 1888) was an Italian librarian, musicologist, historian of music, and composer.

Florimo was born in San Giorgio Morgeto in Calabria and enrolled at the age of 12 (or 15) at the Naples Conservatory (Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella). There he studied with Nicola Antonio Zingarelli and Giacomo Tritto and met Vincenzo Bellini, a student companion who became a lifelong friend and the recipient of Florimo's fervent devotion. Florimo later dedicated several works to Bellini, including his Traslazione delle ceneri di Vincenzo Bellini: memorie e impressioni, (Naples, 1876) and Bellini: memorie e lettere (Florence 1882). This material contains much that is important and indispensable, but some of the letters were partially or entirely fabricated, and several of Florimo's more dubious claims were based on 'remembered conversations' that cannot have occurred. These errors have caused numerous difficulties for subsequent Bellini scholars.

At the conservatory Florimo became a singing instructor and director of vocal concerts. His conservative Metodo di canto (Naples, 1840?; Milan, 1841–1843; enlarged 1861) was influential and widely praised. It claimed to be based on the teaching methods of the castrato Crescentini, who was still head of the Naples Conservatory singing school at the time, and was meant to restore the 'antico bello', or true Italian style of singing from the time of Alessandro Scarlatti, Nicola Porpora, and Francesco Durante, which had been largely supplanted by the then fashionable 'la moda barocca'.

In his youth Florimo composed cantatas and masses. Among his later compositions, most notable are the Sinfonia funebre per la morte di Bellini (Milan, 1836) and his songs, many of which are in a popular Neapolitan style. Several collections of his songs appeared in the series Collezione completa delle canzoncine nazionali napoletane (published by Girard in Naples) and some songs were reprinted (ca. 1853) by Ricordi in Milan. These may contain genuine transcriptions of popular material, but to what degree, it is difficult or almost impossible to determine.

...
Wikipedia