Guido Cantelli
Guido Cantelli (Italian: [ˈɡwi.do kanˈtɛl.li]; 27 April 1920 – 24 November 1956) was an Italian orchestral conductor. Toscanini elected him his "spiritual heir" since the beginnings of his career.[1] He was named Musical Director of La Scala, Milan in November 1956, but his promising career was cut short only one week later by his death at the age of 36 in the 1956 Paris DC-6 crash in France on route to the United States.[2]
Biography[edit]
Early years[edit]
Cantelli was born on 27 April 1920 in Novara, Italy, to Antonio and Angela (née Riccardone).[1] He started studying music while still very young. From 1939 until 1941 he studied with Arrigo Pedrollo, and then, from 1941 until 1942, with Giorgio Federico Ghedini and Antonino Votto. In 1940 he started his conducting career, graduating from the Milan Conservatory in 1943.[1]
Career[edit]
Cantelli studied at the Milan Conservatory and began a promising conducting career. In 1943, he garnered acclaim for a representation of the Traviata at the Teatro Coccia. Besides being the conductor, Cantelli was also the artistic director of the representation.[1]
Cantelli's career was interrupted by World War II, during which he was forced to serve in the Italian army, and then placed in a German labour camp because of his outspoken opposition to the Nazis. He was sent with a team of labourers to Frankfurt am Main. While in Germany, Cantelli was interned in a concentration camp in Szczecin. He fell ill and managed to escape the camp. Cantelli was repatriated to Italy in 1944, establishing himself in Turin.[1] He resumed his musical career after the Allies liberated Italy.[3]
After resuming his musical career in Turin, Cantelli was invited to conduct some concerts with the Symphony Orchestra of the Radio of Milan (Orchestra sinfonica della Radio di Milano). Riccardo Pick-Mangiagalli, the director of the Milan Conservatory, decided it was the moment to present the young conductor to the wide public, organizing a concert at the Rocchetta Court of the Castello Sforzesco on 27 July 1945, entrusting to Cantelli the Orchestra of La Scala. The programme was very proving, and included, among other things, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, or Pathétique Symphony. The performance immediately signalled Cantelli's "innate elegance of the gesture, the interpretative strength and stylistic purity, which, animated by the youthful momentum of the young conductor, made a great impression on the public."[1]
Personal life[edit]
Cantelli's wife was Iris Cantelli, née Bilucaglia, the daughter of a noted Istrian Italian paediatrician and obstetrician, who had to leave his native land in the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus. They had a son together, Leonardo, who was but 5 months old at the time of his father's death.[10][11]