Giuseppe Mazza

Giuseppe Mazza (Lucca, 1806 – Trieste, 1885) was an Italian composer whose career unfolded across Tuscany, Naples and the Adriatic in the first half of the nineteenth century. He is remembered today above all for a comic opera that outlasted most of his others.

His first lessons were given by Domenico Quilici in Lucca. He later studied harmony and counterpoint in Bologna with Stanislao Mattei, the teacher of Rossini and Donizetti. Back in Lucca, his first opera, La vigilanza delusa, was staged, and its warm reception brought him commissions for Florence and Naples. His later works met with less success, and Mazza then turned to conducting operas.

He secured a stable post as maestro di cappella and organist at the church of Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo in Trieste, where he gained a reputation as an excellent singing teacher. He held that post until his death. Much of his operatic output has fallen into oblivion, with the exception of La prova di un'opera seria (1845), a work in the vein of Cimarosa's Il maestro di cappella, which was revived in Spanish in 1903 under the title El maestro campanone, in a version by Vicente Lleó. Besides opera, he composed a considerable body of sacred music.