Fonotipia.
Italian music publishers. The Società Italiana di Fonotipia was founded in 1904 in Milan. Its musical adviser was Umberto Giordano. From the outset there was close involvement with Odeon, the International Talking Machine Company of Berlin; indeed Fonotipia was virtually Odeon’s Italian section. There were frequent reorganizations and changes of ownership, and Fonotipia eventually became part of EMI which issued an historic series largely of Fonotipia origin in the 1930s. The label depicts a seated angel, wings spread, holding a lyre in one hand while the other operates a press.
The catalogue consisted primarily of opera but also included violin and piano works. Recording was done almost entirely in Milan, but also occasionally in Paris; the standard of orchestral accompaniment is generally noticeably better than that on other labels. Artists who recorded mainly or exclusively for the firm include Giuseppe Anselmi, Alessandro Bonci, Victor Capoul, Adamo Didur, Léon Escalaïs, Salomea Krusceniski, Victor Maurel, Mario Sammarco, Rosina Storchio, Riccardo Stracciari, Francesco Vignas and Giovanni Zenatello. Many recordings have been re-released on CD. Jean de Reszke and the Romanian soprano Hariclea Darclée may also have been recorded in Paris but no copies are known.
ELIOT B. LEVIN
Fonseca, Julio
(b San José, 22 May 1885; d San José, 22 June 1950). Costa Rican composer. He studied music with his father, a military band musician, at the Escuela Nacional de Música in San José (theory and solfège), and later with Alvise Castegnaro. A government grant (1902–6) enabled him to continue his studies in Milan with Ricci, Coronaro and Ferroni (piano and harmony), and at the Brussels Conservatory with Tinel (composition) and Louis Van Dam (piano). In 1906 he returned to Costa Rica, where he was appointed Instrumentista Oficial de las Bandas de la República (arranger) and maestro de capilla at the church of La Merced, San José (1922–50), taught at the Colegio Superior de Señoritas (1927–42) and the Escuela S Cecilia (1942–50), was founder-director of the Euterpe Music Academy in 1934, and was founder and professor of the Conservatorio Nacional in 1942. In 1914 he resided in New York, and he conducted a concert of his works in Washington, DC, in 1949; he spent the rest of his life in San José.
Fonseca is the most prolific composer in the history of Costa Rica, but his isolation from contemporary musical developments meant that his music, though full of charm and fresh inspiration, remained relatively conservative. It is tonal, sometimes Impressionist, showing fine command of harmony and form (with some counterpoint), good orchestration and a lively rhythm.
WORKS
(selective list)
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Stage: Caperucita encarnada (children's op); Caperucita roja (children's op); Money is not all (operetta)
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Vocal: Himno del centenario de la aparición de la Virgen de los ángeles, chorus, orch, 1934; Himno-cant. a la música, chorus, orch, 1935; Marcha festiva de la Orden Mercedaria, chorus, orch, 1937; 5 masses; 3 cants.; 55 songs
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Orch: Leda, waltz intermezzo, 1914; Oh! Costa Rica, Suite tropicál sobre temas costarricenses, 1934; Gran fantasía sinfónica sobre motivos folklóricos, 1937; Las ruinas de Ujarrás, ov., 1938
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Chbr and solo inst: Sonata, B, vn, pf, 1904–5, Pf Trio, c1905; Pf Qnt ‘El Cenáculo y el Gólgota’; Str Qnt; Suite ‘Wheaton Hills’, pf; other pf pieces, incl. 2 mazurkas, Nocturne, Notturnetto, 12 pasillos, 22 waltzes
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Other: tangos, foxtrots, danzóns
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Principal publisher: Imprenta nacional
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‘Referencia sobre música costarricense’, Revista de estudios musicales, i/3 (1950), 75–97
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compositores de America/Composers of the Americas, ed. Pan American Union, ii (Washington DC, 1956), 70–76 [incl. list of works]
B. Flores: Julio Fonseca (San José, 1973)
B. Flores: La música en Costa Rica (San José, 1978)
BERNAL FLORES ZELLER
Fonseca Luzio, Pedro da
(b Campo Maior, c1610; d ?Vila Viçosa, after 1662). Portuguese composer. From 1638 he was parish priest of the church near the palace of the dukes of Bragança in Vila Viçosa, and on 15 August 1640 he officiated at the marriage of a relative of the composer brothers João Laurenço Rebelo and Marcos Soares Pereira, who were witnesses. Baptised Pedro da Fonseca, he began to add ‘Luzio’ to his name in 1638 and used it consistently from 1640, possibly in honour of his brother Bartolomeu da Fonseca Luzio, who died in 1642. According to Stevenson, he composed a polychoral Requiem for the King’s brother, Duarte, and corresponded with the King on the compositional techniques used in this and other pieces. In 1663, he was succeeded as mestre de capela by the chaplain, João Gomes Vaqueiro (see Alegria, 1983).
Five psalm settings for four voices by Fonseca Luzio are given pride of place in a manuscript (in P-VV) copied by Pedro da Crus in 1735. A mass, a Magnificat, nine psalm settings, two lessons for Holy Week and 47 villancicos were included in the library of João IV in Lisbon; none of these works survives.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
JoãoIL
M. Joaquim: Vinte livros de música polifónica do Paço ducal de Vila Viçosa (Lisbon, 1953)
R. Stevenson: ‘Antologia de polifónia portuguesa’: preface to PM, xxxvii (Lisbon, 1982), 17–18
J.A. Alegria: História da capela e colégio dos santos reis de Vila Viçosa (Lisbon, 1983)
R.V. Nery: A música no ciclo da ‘Biblioteca lusitana’ (Lisbon, 1984)
J.A. Alegria: Biblioteca do Palácio real de Vila Viçosa: catálogo dos fundos musicais (Lisbon, 1989)
MICHAEL RYAN
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