Filippo Filippi

Filippo Filippi (Vicenza, 1830 – Milan, 1887) was one of the most influential music critics in Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although he first trained as a pianist and organist, and went on to take a law degree at Padua in 1853, his true vocation lay in criticism: as early as 1851 he wrote in defence of Rigoletto against its detractors.

Once he had qualified, he settled in Venice and devoted himself wholly to music. In 1859 he joined the Gazzetta musicale di Milano as assistant editor, and he served as its director from 1860 to 1862. From 1862 until his death he was critic for the Milanese newspaper La perseveranza, from which he attained a dominant position among his Italian colleagues; writers such as Basevi and Biaggi frequently cited him.

He travelled through much of Europe, and his journeys to hear Wagner's music in Germany produced a series of articles in La perseveranza, in 1870 and 1876, the first of which was later collected in Musica e musicisti and translated into German. A fervent admirer of Verdi, who treated him with notable consideration, Filippi nevertheless disapproved of the German influence that Wagner seemed to promote. Verdi also disapproved of his journey to Cairo for the premiere of Aida, regarding it as unnecessary publicity.

His legacy rests on several concrete achievements. In 1883 he wrote the first serious appraisal of a work by Puccini, the Capriccio sinfonico, and in 1884 his criticism of the 'symphonism' of Le villi provoked Verdi's well-known letter to Arrivabene. He was also among the first to study the Contarini archive in Venice. Above all, however, together with Francesco D'Arcais he helped lend intellectual authority to a profession in Italy that until then had been confined to the mere reporting of events.