Marco Enrico Bossi (1861-1925)

TRANSCRIPTION

                                                                   6. 1. 99.

Illustre e Caro Maestro

La ringrazio vivamente per la squisita cortesia colla quale ha accolto la Signorina Scattola e dell'interesse preso per lei. Tanta sua amabilità è di inestimabile vantaggio per noi che guardiamo a Lei come al faro luminoso, come a guida sicura nel non facile sentiero dell'arte.

Ella deve perciò perdonarmi se ardisco ancora oggi pregarla d'un nuovo consimile favore. Si tratta di una mia particolare allieva (già educata in parte da Caputo a Napoli) ed ora laureata dal mio Liceo. La Signorina Eleonora Gallucci (tale è il nome della mia allieva) ambirebbe all'alto onore di farsi giudicare da Lei: vorrebbe essere tanto gentile e compiacente di dirmi se e quando potrebbe recarsi a Bologna per defraudarlo d'un ora? Grazie vivissime in anticipazione ed auguri e saluti affettuosi dal Suo Dev.

M. E. Bossi

TRANSLATION

                                                                   6. 1. 99¹

Eminent and Dear Master²

I thank you deeply for the exquisite kindness to receive Miss Scattola³ and for the attention that you had for her. So much amiability has an inestimable value for us who are looking to you like a luminous lighthouse, like a sure guide in the not easy path of the art.

Therefore you have to forgive me if still today I have the impudence to request of you a similar favor. I'm speaking about a particular pupil of mine⁴ (already partially educated in Naples by Caputo⁵) and now graduated from my Liceo⁶. Miss Eleonora Gallucci⁷ (this is the name of my student) would aspire to the high honor of being judged by you. Would you be so kind and compliant [?] to tell me if and when she could come to Bologna⁸ to rob you of an hour? Thanks a lot in advance and affectionate greetings and salutations from your devoted

M. E. Bossi

NOTES:
1) January 6, 1899
2) An unidentified musician and pedagogue in Bologna.
3) Probably a student of Bossi's. Nothing more is known about her.
4) Eleonora Gallucci (See #7 below)
5) Caputo (?)
6) Bossi was the director of the Benedetto Marcello Liceo Musicale in Venice. (N.B. This reference from Cosima Wagner by George R. Marek (New York:1981) p. 202: "[Venice, 1882] Toward the latter part of December, Wagner went off alone  several times giving Cosima various excuses, none of which she believed. She guessed what was going on: he was preparing a birthday surprise for her. A symphony he had written when he was 19 had long been lost, but the parts had turned up in Dresden and he now intended to have it performed for Cosima, with Seidl as conductor. He had leased the Fenice Theatre for the evening of December 24, [Cosima's birthday]; the students of the Venice Conservatoire, the Liceo Benedetto Marcello were to play.")
7) Undoubtedly a student of Bossi's on whose behalf Bossi was intervening.
8) Liceo Musicale of Bologna. The director at this time was Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) who served from 1886 to 1902 when Bossi became director. Bossi remained as director until 1911.
9) (see below) According to Marcello Garofalo, son composer and organist Carlo Giorgio Garofalo (1886-1962): "Bossi passed away of natural causes, an illness. on a transatlantic liner during the crossing from the U.S. to La Havre, France. It was a real loss, considering he was getting established in the United States. I do not know whether the unpleasant situation when he was director at St. Cecilia in Rome [his position at the time of his death] might have affected his health."  Bossi gave at least one concert on the great Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia. He was considered "one of the finest:"

"During the lifetime of John Wanamaker and his son Rodman, the finest musicians were brought to the store for brilliant after-business-hours concerts, including France's Marcel Dupre, Louis Vierne and Nadia Boulanger, Italy's Fernando Germani and Marco Enrico Bossi, and England's Alfred Hollins. (Source: http://www.dtrmusic.com/orgwana.html; n.d.)

Bossi played on "a gala radio broadcast on February 11, 1925, from the auditorium of the New York Wanamaker department store with the noted composer and then-associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Henry Hadley, conducting a pick-up orchestra with Dupré as soloist. It was a "concert to be remembered" that included organ, and orchestra performances of Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue, Bossi playing his Concerto in A Minor, Palmer Christian playing DeLamarter’s Concerto in E, and Carles Courboin playing the Widor Sixth Symphony." (Source: http://www.guildmusic.com/reviews/rev7195z.htm; dated 7/14/2001)

Our thanks also to Andrea Conti, Principal trombonist of the Bayerische Staatsoper and Trombone and Tuba teacher in the Corso di Alta Formazione for translation and information about Bossi.

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