Alfredo Casella

Today’s date is the birthday of the Italian composer Alfredo Casella—or “Alfred Casella” as he was known during his tenure as conductor of the Boston Pops in the later 1920s.

Casella was born in Turin in 1883, and died in Rome in 1947. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, attended Fauré’s composition classes, and counted Ravel as a friend. His enthusiasms included much of the “new” music of his day, including the works of Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Mahler in the early years of the 20th century… and Bartók, Schoenberg and Stravinsky as those composers came on the scene. As a composer, conductor, and festival organizer, Casella became one of the most important figures on the Italian music scene between the wars, composing symphonies, concertos, chamber music songs and operas.

This little march from Casella’s “Serenata” for chamber orchestra was composed in 1927, the same year he came to America as the newly-appointed director of the Boston Pops. According to the Boston Symphony his