Mascagni loved keeping company with several sincere friends who willingly put up with his biting and polemical personality. They could recognise compassion and generosity in him.
As Morini states, in Leghorn in the twenty years between 1870 and 1890 there was a blossoming in the fields of literary and artistic studies. So quite naturally, Giosuè Carducci, Pelosini, Mazzoni, Luigi Prati and later Pascoli, who taught at the Leghorn high school, Marradi and Paolo Emilio Tavolini, Sabatino Lopez and Pietro Micheli were prolific in their fields. Many other friends like the young poet-writer Giosuè Borsi dedicated verses to him.
Afterwards Fattori, Angiolo Tommasi, Corcos Plinio Nomellini, Levi dedicated themselves honourably to the figurative arts in Leghorn. The admiration and friendship that the painters and sculptors showed him was at least as much as that shown by the poets and literary figures if not greater. Plinio Nomellini was like a brother to him. Mascagni had a weakness for figurative arts and during his life he collected numerous statues and paintings. Fattori and Mascagni grew to be very close friends due to the many times Mascagni came to Fattori’s aid.
Thanks to Nomellini, Mascagni came into possession of one of his most famous paintings, Piazza Caricamento in Genoa. The great oil on canvas dated 1891. It was admired at the second biannual of Venice. Thus, the painter writes to his friend, “your music excites me and lifts my spirits, so much so that the colour of my modest symphonies lights up my sound”.
The place of honour among his Leghorn friends goes to the writer Giovanni Targione Tozzetti (Leghorn 1863 – 1934). Tozzetti and Mascagni had the same age and Tozzetti was a friend and a discreet companion throughout Mascagni’s life. Nanni and Mascagni had been friends since they were children. The content of his friendship with Tozzetti was countersigned by the brusque arguments and battles both won and lost. Tozzetti wrote, other than the libretto for the Cavaleria Rusticana, i Rantzau, Zanetto, Silvano, il Piccolo Marat (with G. Forzano), Pinotta and Nerone. There were always many friends and passionate critics in Leghorn among whom were Armando Tanzini, Giorgio Nunes and Giuseppe Hirsch.
His friends in Milan
While Mascagni was at the music conservatory he got to know Vittorio Gianfranceschi (Vienna 1861 – Milano 1932) whom he affectionately called Vichi. Gianfranceschi graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Milan in 1884.
Mascagni and Gianfranceschi were introduced to each other by a common friend Guido Cave from Leghorn. Cave was like Gianfranceschi in that they were both engineering students and music lovers. Gianfranceschi, Cave and a cavalry officer Del Pra from Treviso made up what Mascagni affectionately called “The Council of the Three”. The triumphant was the judge, with a court of appeals, for all Mascangi’s early music compositions. Mascagni admired the sense of justice and culture that he saw in Vichi and he always held Vichi’s opinions in high regard. Morini writes that Gianfranceschi immediately started encouraging the young Mascagni for whom he saw a promising future in music. Vichi was one of the first critics of Mascagni’s music and he knew how to recognise potential in Mascagni. Vichi saw the sign of a musical genius waiting for the right moment.
In 1884 Vichi introduced Mascagni to the tragedy by Heine Guglielmo Ratcliff translated by Andrea Maffei. He did this with the intention of provoking a stronger musical commitment in Mascagni. Vichi and Mascagni were like brothers. When Mascagni left Milan, they continued to exchange numerous letters. Their friendship lasted until Vichi’s death in 1932. Guglielmo Ratcliff was dedicated to him as a sign of his lasting admiration and brotherhood.
While he was in Milan Mascagni met Giacomo Puccini (Lucca 1858 - Brussels 1924) at the conservatory. Between the two men, a fraternal and solid friendship was born. The young musicians were students of Maestro Ponchielli. They were both in precarious economic condition. They shared the same room for a long period of time in a modest last floor apartment. They divided everything - their meals, even their hours of study. Luigi Fait writes, “together they buy the music sheets of Wagner and Boito in order to study them together.
Slightly better off than Mascagni, Puccini was given the regal sum of 125 liras while Mascagni received 100 liras from the Leghorn Count Lardarel. With such sums of money it was not easy to lead a life of dignity. The two young composers tried to make ends meet. The timid Puccini depended upon the alert and clever and bold nature of his Leghorn friend. Mascagni himself tells us that he once took up a collection inaugurated by the painter Sala with 30 liras and then continued by Boito and the others. The opera took place.
Mascagni remained behind the curtains during the entire performance and he was one of the first to embrace his friend-composer. In 1890 after the premier of Cavalleria Rusticana the first congratulatory telegram he received had been sent by his friend Giacomo. They had reciprocal esteem and friendship, one for the other. However, between the two there were always arguments and criticisms. Mascagni tells us about his friendship with Puccini in an interview with De Carlo. On the 27 November 1924 Mascagni wrote a desperate letter from Vienna to Adriano Belli about Puccini’s death. In 1930 with Forzano he inaugurated the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago by directing La Boheme in honour of his friend.
His Friends in Cerignola
Among Pietro Mascagni’s friends, his closest and dearest came from Cerignola and Bari. The friends from Cerignola helped the musician at the beginning of his career and during his stay there. They were enthusiastic followers of his operas. Mascagni maintained voluminous letter contact with many of them and many were testimony to the sincerity of his friendship. As we can see in the interview with De Carlo, Mascagni tells us about several episodes concerning his friends from Puglia.
His Friends in Rome
Luigi Ricci was a maestro of music and Mascagni’s collaborator for over 34 years. He prepared the singers at the piano for the operas and he directed the musical part of the stage.
He tells us, “I had the good luck and the honour to work next to Pietro Mascagni for 34 wonderful years. We shared an artistic understanding and a fondness that is difficult to find. I can say with pride that Mascagni felt the same affection and friendship for me. When I remember the details of our working together I am over taken by a feeling of satisfaction that could have come only after having spent a lot of time in his presence. I had the privilege of contributing to the realisation and set design of his operas. I also had the privilege of enjoying his trust and esteem”.
During the course of his life, Mascagni met and got to know many people. Certainly we cannot always speak about a profound friendship, but rather we can speak about artistic collaboration. On the one hand, we can speak about musical affinity in the case of Mascagni and the Viennese composer Gustav Mahler. On the other hand , we can speak about years of musical collaboration that united Mascagni in the real sense of a loyal friendship and esteem that united Mascagni with his librettist Luigi Illica who wrote the words to Iris, Le Maschere and Isabeau and we can also speak about his collaboration with the Italian opera giant Giuseppe Verdi.
During the last few years of his life, the same years that coincided with the Second World War, the elder Mascagni was often ill and he led a solitary and reclusive life. It is during this period that we can speak about the friendship between Mascagni and the Roman poet Trilussa. Young musicians like Franco Mannino, Ezio Carabella, Tito Aprea and Victor De Sabata used to visit Mascagni in the Plaza Hotel where he lived.
Mascagni asked Franco Ferrara to play some music on the same piano on which he composed the Cavalleria. It was a very old, up-right piano.
Maestro Mannino recalls those time with these words, “ when he saw us enter the room, he started crying. Then he asked me to play because he wanted to hear, for just one more time, the sound of the piano in the Cavalleria”. “A few days later,” continues Mannino, “De Sabata, Ferrara and I attended his funeral together with the people of who adored Mascagni’s music and who came in droves to his funeral. Over one-hundred people attended his funeral”.
Biography - His Family - His Women - His Passions - His Tours - On the podium - Portrait of an artist