Melodia per pianoforte

In the private archives of Ada Labanca, made available to us, we found the “”music cards”” of her grandmother, Adelina Orlando, “most noble student” of the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory in Naples.

There are numerous manuscripts by composers not at all known. One of these is Franco Paolantonio, who dedicated several of his works to Adelina. The collection includes both handwritten music and pieces published by the Author during his lifetime. The interest aroused by the quality of the pieces, gave us the desire to bring this music back to light.

Franco Paolantoniorediscovery of a composer

by Andreina Di Girolamo and Bernadette Tripodi

It was therefore decided to present an editorial project at the Lorenzo Perosi Conservatory of Music in Campobasso, where we both taught, focusing on his entire piano work at the time known and on the two pieces for violin and piano.

These compositions were published in December 2019 by the publishing house “Il Setticlavio” with the title “I Manoscritti di Franco Paolantonio” and enclosed a CD with the first recording of all the pieces object of the work, interpreted by Bernadette Tripodi on the piano and by Michelangelo Massa on the violin. The following are the titles:

Melody for piano Op. 1; 1st Mazurka pour piano Op. 5 n ° 1; Serenade for