'O Sole Mio
Eduardo Di Capua
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Browse piano sheets by Eduardo Di Capua on Zen Virtual Piano. Eduardo Di Capua was born in Naples on 12 May 1865 to Giacobbe, a street musician and violinist who also wrote Neapolitan songs that enjoyed some notoriety at the time. His father saw to his musical and instrumental training, which took place outside the regular schools, and he attended the prestigious conservatory of San Pietro a Majella for only a few months. A training outside the regular schools and only a few months at a conservatory mark a distinctive route into music. He made his artistic debut following his father, in the mandolin ensemble the father directed, on tours in Italy, England and Russia. A debut inside a father’s mandolin ensemble ties his first appearances to touring and to family. He already had a substantial series of songs to his name, begun in 1884 with “Lo campaniello de la parrocchia,” and some notoriety, won above all with the publication in 1887 of “Margaretella” and “Capille d’oro,” when in 1898 he composed “’O sole mio.” A composer who already had some notoriety when “’O sole mio” came shows a song arriving in a career already under way. He collaborated with P. Cinquegrana on “Capille d’oro,” S. Di Giacomo on “Carcioffolà,” F. Russo on “Serenatella nera” and E. Murolo on “Pusilleco, Pusì,” besides the partnership with Giovanni Capurro from which “’O sole mio” was born. Di Capua, alongside the young Alfredo Mazzocchi, created an Andantino with a rather extended melody, an ostinato accompaniment in habanera rhythm and frequent use of the subdominant chord. In March 2002 a judge in Turin ruled that Alfredo Mazzucchi (1878–1972) should be acknowledged as a co-composer of the melody. A song credited to a poet and a composer, with a 2002 ruling naming a co-composer, shows how many names can stand behind one melody. Even apart from its words, the music of “’O sole mio” sums up, in its brevity and simplicity, all the components of the most authentic Neapolitan lyric tradition, beginning with melodic singability. A tune praised for its brevity and simplicity suggests why listeners could so easily carry it with them. International appreciation and fame did not keep Di Capua from economic difficulties: he was forced to direct a small orchestra at the Teatro dei Fiorentini during intervals, to accompany silent films on the piano in lesser venues and to give singing lessons, and he died in poverty on 3 October 1917. A song that drew international appreciation and a composer who ended his life in poverty make a stark contrast of fame and reward. On the cover of a 1919 Piedigrotta, Achille Macchia called Di Capua “brilliant, popular and at the same time aristocratic master of the song.”
Browse piano sheets by Eduardo Di Capua on Zen Virtual Piano.
Eduardo Di Capua was born in Naples on 12 May 1865 to Giacobbe, a street musician and violinist who also wrote Neapolitan songs that enjoyed some notoriety at the time. His father saw to his musical and instrumental training, which took place outside the regular schools, and he attended the prestigious conservatory of San Pietro a Majella for only a few months. A training outside the regular schools and only a few months at a conservatory mark a distinctive route into music.
He made his artistic debut following his father, in the mandolin ensemble the father directed, on tours in Italy, England and Russia. A debut inside a father’s mandolin ensemble ties his first appearances to touring and to family. He already had a substantial series of songs to his name, begun in 1884 with “Lo campaniello de la parrocchia,” and some notoriety, won above all with the publication in 1887 of “Margaretella” and “Capille d’oro,” when in 1898 he composed “’O sole mio.” A composer who already had some notoriety when “’O sole mio” came shows a song arriving in a career already under way.
He collaborated with P. Cinquegrana on “Capille d’oro,” S. Di Giacomo on “Carcioffolà,” F. Russo on “Serenatella nera” and E. Murolo on “Pusilleco, Pusì,” besides the partnership with Giovanni Capurro from which “’O sole mio” was born. Di Capua, alongside the young Alfredo Mazzocchi, created an Andantino with a rather extended melody, an ostinato accompaniment in habanera rhythm and frequent use of the subdominant chord. In March 2002 a judge in Turin ruled that Alfredo Mazzucchi (1878–1972) should be acknowledged as a co-composer of the melody. A song credited to a poet and a composer, with a 2002 ruling naming a co-composer, shows how many names can stand behind one melody.
Even apart from its words, the music of “’O sole mio” sums up, in its brevity and simplicity, all the components of the most authentic Neapolitan lyric tradition, beginning with melodic singability. A tune praised for its brevity and simplicity suggests why listeners could so easily carry it with them. International appreciation and fame did not keep Di Capua from economic difficulties: he was forced to direct a small orchestra at the Teatro dei Fiorentini during intervals, to accompany silent films on the piano in lesser venues and to give singing lessons, and he died in poverty on 3 October 1917. A song that drew international appreciation and a composer who ended his life in poverty make a stark contrast of fame and reward. On the cover of a 1919 Piedigrotta, Achille Macchia called Di Capua “brilliant, popular and at the same time aristocratic master of the song.”
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Eduardo Di Capua
Eduardo Di Capua
Eduardo Di Capua
Eduardo Di Capua
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Eduardo Di Capua composed it in 1898, in partnership with the poet Giovanni Capurro; in March 2002 a judge in Turin ruled that Alfredo Mazzucchi (1878–1972) should be acknowledged as a co-composer of the melody.
In Naples, on 12 May 1865, to Giacobbe, a street musician and violinist who wrote Neapolitan songs.
He collaborated with P. Cinquegrana on “Capille d’oro,” S. Di Giacomo on “Carcioffolà,” F. Russo on “Serenatella nera,” E. Murolo on “Pusilleco, Pusì” and Giovanni Capurro on “’O sole mio.”