Riccardo Brengola


Riccardo Brengola was a famous Italian violinist and professor.

Biography

Riccardo Brengola was born in Naples on 18 March 1917, to his father Carlo and his mother
Maria Esposito. His father was a cellist, who also had a passion for lutherie, but the
extremely harsh economic conditions in the immediate post war period pushed him to
emigrate with his wife and son to Casablanca, Morocco in 1919. It was here that he opened a music
shop that sold instruments, sheet music and albums.
When Riccardo turned three his father Carlo decided to make him a violinist, by teaching and making him his first instrument. Riccardo was talented and the paternal teachings soon allowed him to perform Arabic music in public. At the age of six he was enrolled in the Casablanca Music Conservatory, where he was taught by Lucien Salin, who graduated from the Lucien Capet school.
Meanwhile, Riccardo also attended a Spanish primary school where he was made to learn his
fourth language. At this point in his life he spoke Spanish, French, Arabic, and the Neapolitan dialect, though he still did not speak Italian. At eleven he graduated from the Conservatory and in 1929 Mussolini offered him a bursary in Italy, which allowed him to move to Rome where he joined the Arrigo Serato School.
A few years later he graduated from the renowned Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in
Rome and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. The latter was founded in 1932 by
Count Guido Chigi Saracini, a great patron of Italian music. Thanks to his extraordinary
foresight and generosity the new institution quickly became an essential landmark of
international music.
Brengola took part in numerous competitions and won prestigious prizes and titles, amongst
which was the one in Taormina that includes all the national review winners of the
Niccolò Paganini prize, as well as the Accademia Chigiana prize for improvement. In 1937 he was
the only Italian amongst the winners of the First International Music Competition in Geneva.
Meanwhile, in 1938 he met the pianist Giuliana Bordoni in Siena, a student of the Alfredo
Casella perfecting course at the Accademia Chigiana. At the time she was 18, and he was 21. They
married in the summer of 1941 at the headquarters of the Accademia Chigiana: the Palazzo Chigi Saracini chapel. Their marriage lasted almost 60 years, and three children were born. They
formed a stable duo, which received notable acknowledgements during numerous concerts
across Italy and abroad, and they recorded the entirety of the Mozart Sonatas for the Radio Televisione Italiana.
In 1939 Count Chigi decided to create a new chamber music group called Quintetto
Chigiano, which was formed by choosing some of the best students of the Accademia: Riccardo Brengola,
first violin and Ferruccio Scaglia, second violin ;
Giovanni Leone, viola; Lino Filippini, cello; Sergio Lorenzi, piano. In a few years the
Quintetto conquered international fame, touring the world, while being recognized as one of the
best bands. Despite these performances, Brengola never stopped performing solo and
conducting alongside his chamber music activity. These practices were disciplines he undertook after
studying the Paul van Kempen course at the Chigiana.
In 1941 he was appointed head teacher for exceptional merits at the Music Conservatory of
Pesaro. He would then teach, in turn, at the conservatories in Venice, Bologna, Naples and Rome. In 1946 Count Chigi selected him as course director of the ensemble music course at the Accademia Chigiana, where he would teach until 1997.
In 1966, the year after Guido Chigi’s death, the Quintetto became the Sestetto Chigiano
d’Archi: this was composed of, alongside Brengola, Giovanni Guglielmo,
Mario Benvenuti e Tito Riccardi, Alain Meunier and Adriano Vendramelli.
Brengola taught chamber music for many years, facilitating training courses at the
Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he was an academic and a member of the Board
of Directors. He taught courses and seminars in the most prestigious music institutes in the
world, including those in Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Dublin, and Tokyo.
Throughout his career Brengola played numerous violins: most of all the violins of Ansaldo
Poggi ; the “Contessa Crespi” by G.B. Guadagnini; the
“Conte di Fontana” by A. Stradivari, previously owned by David Oistrakh; and, in the
eighties, an instrument made by Roberto Regazzi, another violin maker from Bologna.
His intense concert activity was particularly dedicated to rediscovering the works by
Boccherini for piano and violin and for quintet and sextet, also recorded on vinyl, and
twentieth century music of which he was one of the first exponents and communicators. He
performed, above all, works by Alfano, Mortari, Frazzi, Martucci, Malipiero, Casella,
Ferrari, Respighi, Zafred, Lavagnino, Nordio, Busoni, Veretti, Pizzetti, Petrassi, Peragallo,
Berio, Ravinale, and many others. Amongst his recordings: the three Brahm’s Sonatas
With Pier Narciso Masi at the piano ; Boccherini’s Quintets,
Bloch, Brahms, Schumann, Shostakovich, Dvorak.
Brengola’s tours abroad and the courses at the Chigiana put him in contact with the most
renowned musicians of the twentieth century, from Casella to Enescu, Franco Ferrara,
Berio, Segovia, Casals, Oistrakh, Milstein, Celibidache, Giulini, Mehta, Gazzelloni, building
meaningful friendships with many of them.
One of his most authentic passions was teaching, to which he
remained greatly committed. As Constantin Zanidache, a close collaborator of his for over
twenty years at the Accademia Chigiana, wrote: “during his lessons, he was able to create
highly intense and emotive atmospheres. His lessons, often very strict, still never failed to
make his students fall in love”.
Particularly relevant, in addition to his teaching activity at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia
and the Accademia Chigiana, was his contribution to the University of Tokyo in Japan in the
1990s. This was also thanks to the mediation and commitment of Shuku Iwasaki, his assistant
at the Chigiana, and of Koko Kato, his student and dear friend. It was because of this activity
that Brengola established a relationship with the emperor Akihito and the Empress Michiko.
In 2003 the Japanese government bestowed upon him the high honor “Ordine del Sol Levante” to acknowledge his contribution to elevating the standard of classical music in Japan.
Other honors that deserve to be mentioned include the title of Commendatore of the Italian
Republic, awarded by President Sandro Pertini in 1982, and the honorary citizenship of
Siena in 1980.
Riccardo Brengola died in Rome on 16 May 2004.
In 2017, to mark a century from Riccardo’s birth, the Accademia Chigiana held a concert in his honor in Siena on 10 July, executed by a Quintet formed by Federico Guglielmo and Felice Cusano on violin, Laura Riccardi on viola, Alain Meunier on cello and Anne Le Bozec on piano.