Mario Paci (June 4, 1878 – August 3, 1946), also known by his Chinese name Mei Baiqi (), was an Italian

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and conductor who was instrumental in establishing classical European music in China.

Life

Paci was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. He attended the Naples Conservatory and in 1895 won the Franz Liszt Prize. Afterwards, he undertook extended tours across all of Europe. Through the support of

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...

, he was able to study composition and conducting at the Milan Conservatory. In December 1918, Paci went to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

to perform at the Olympic Theater. He was hospitalized after falling ill, and ended up deciding to stay in Shanghai. In 1919, he took the leadership of the predecessor of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the oldest symphony orchestra in Asia, which had been founded in 1879 as a military wind band. Paci succeeded in having the orchestra grow from 22 to 37 members and gave the first symphonic concert in Asia on November 23, 1919. On the program was

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

's fifth symphony, the serenade for strings "In the Far West" by Granville Bantock, and Edvard Grieg's

Peer Gynt Suite ''Peer Gynt'', Op. 23, is the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play of the same name, written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1875. It premiered along with the play on 24 February 1876 in Christiania (now Oslo). Grieg ...

No. 1. In 1922 the orchestra was renamed the Shanghai Municipal Council Symphony Orchestra. Initially, the audience was composed of foreigners living in Shanghai, who numbered about 20,000; at this time Chinese were not permitted to attend the concerts. Persistent pleas by Paci to the officials led to the loosening of these restrictions. This also applied to the orchestra itself, which originally was composed exclusively of foreigners, but later incorporated Chinese musicians. Paci's support also contributed to the founding of the National Special School for Music (國立上海音樂專科學校), which was renamed the

Shanghai Conservatory The Shanghai Conservatory of Music () was founded on November 27, 1927, as the first music institution of higher education in China. Its teachers and students have won awards at home and abroad, thus earning the conservatory the name "the crad ...

in 1956. This school, established by Cai Yuanpei and

Xiao Youmei Xiao Youmei (, ; 7 January 1884 – 31 December 1940, styled as and ; formerly transliterated Shio Yiu-mei) was a noted Chinese music educator and composer. Life Xiao was born in Zhongshan County, Guangdong to a musical family. From an early ag ...

, was the first conservatory in Asia. Among the teachers there who were also members of the orchestra was the German composer Wolfgang Fraenkel (1897-1983), who fled Germany in 1938, and violinist

Tan Shuzhen Tan Shuzhen (; 1907 – 2002) was a Chinese violinist, teacher and violin maker. In 1927, he became the first Chinese musician to join the Shanghai Municipal Public Band, now the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, led by Italian conductor Mario Paci. "Nob ...

. A high point in the history of the orchestra was the Chinese premiere of Beethoven's ninth symphony on April 14, 1936, under the direction of Paci; by this point many Chinese were in the orchestra, although they were not among the singers. After Japanese invaded China in 1937 and the beginning of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the situation for the orchestra became more severe. Paci was forced to dissolve the orchestra after giving his final performance on May 31, 1942. It was reestablished in October 1950, four years after Paci died in Shanghai. Paci trained some of China's first pianists, including Fou Ts'ong,

Wu Yili Wu Yili (; 1931 – 20 April 2019), also known as Elaine Yi-Li Wu, was a Chinese-Singaporean classical pianist. A member of the first generation of Chinese pianists, she served as the first solo pianist of the China National Symphony Orchestra and ...

, Wu Leyi 吴乐懿, Zhu Gongyi 朱工一, and Zhou Guangren 周广仁.

References

External links

Website of the Shanghai Orchestra, with short historical overview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paci, Mario Italian conductors (music) Italian male conductors (music) Chinese conductors (music) Italian male pianists 1878 births 1946 deaths Musicians from Shanghai Musicians from Florence Italian emigrants to China

Life

See also

References

Further reading

Books

External links