Francesco Paolo Frontini (Catania

Catania

Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...

, August 6, 1860 – Catania, July 26, 1939) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. He studied music with his father, composer Martino Frontini

Martino Frontini

Martino Frontini was an Italian composer and writer who worked with many Catanian musicians in the second half of the nineteenth century; he was the father, and first teacher, of composer Francesco Paolo Frontini. He founded the town band, which he led for thirty years; he also directed the band...

; he also studied the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 with Santi D'Amico, playing a concert with him at the town concert hall at the age of 13. At 15 his first composition, a Qui tollis, was played at the city cathedral, under the direction of Pietro Antonio Coppola

Pietro Antonio Coppola

Pietro Antonio Coppola was an Italian composer and conductor. Born in Enna, he was trained by his father and at the Naples Conservatory. He is chiefly known for his many operas, of which his most famous, Nina pazza per amore, premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome in February 1835...

. In 1875 Frontini matriculated at the conservatory in Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

, where he studied with Pietro Platania

Pietro Platania

Pietro Platania was an Italian composer and teacher of music.Platania was born at Catania. Beginning in 1882 he was the maestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral, and from 1885 until 1902 he served as the director of the Naples Conservatory. As a composer, he was known for his church music and...

; from there he passed to the conservatory in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, where he received his diploma in composition under the tuition of Lauro Rossi.

Among his first substantial compositions was a funeral Mass

Mass (music)

The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...

 in honor of Pietro Coppola. In 1881 came the premiere of a three-act melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

, Nella; further operas followed, beginning with Sansone in 1882, Aleramo (based on the legend of Adelasia and Aleramo) in 1883, Fatalità in 1890, Malia (on a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 of Luigi Capuana

Luigi Capuana

Luigi Capuana was an Italian author and journalist and one of the most important members of the Verist movement. He was a contemporary of Giovanni Verga, both having been born in the province of Catania within a year of each other. He was also one of the first authors influenced by the works of...

) in 1891, and Il Falconiere in 1899. At the same time his lyric poem Medio-Evo received favorable notice from Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

. He wrote music for the one-act play Vicolo delle belle by Saverio Fiducia, as well as for Antonino Russo Giusti

Antonino Russo Giusti

Antonino Russo Giusti was an Italian dramatist.After passing his youth in Belpasso, Giusti studied the classics at Catania before taking his diploma in jurisprudence, upon completion of which he dedicated himself to forensics...

's comedy U Spiridu, which was shown in 1920 at the communal theater under the direction of Gaetano Emanuel Calì

Gaetano Emanuel Calì

Gaetano Emanuel Calì was an Italian composer, orchestra conductor, and bandleader. He was student of Francesco Paolo Frontini, under whom he began to study classical instead of popular music....

. He also wrote a number of religious and secular choral compositions at this time. Frontini also wrote numerous songs, melodies, serenatas and romances; the most popular of these were his Serenata araba, Il piccolo montanaro, and a Triumphal March. In addition to his activities as a composer, he taught music and counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 at the Ospizio di Beneficenza.

One of Frontini's chief interests was popular music and song, and he compiled the first collection of Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 folk songs in Italy; fifty pieces from this collection were published by Casa Ricordi

Casa Ricordi

Casa Ricordi is a classical music publishing company founded in 1808 as G. Ricordi & Co. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi in Milan, Italy...

 in 1882; a second collection, titled Natale siciliano, was published in 1893 by De Marchi of Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

Frontini died in the city of his birth in 1939.

This article is based on a translation of the corresponding article in the Italian Wikipedia.