Mario Paci

Mario Paci ( born June 4, 1878 in Florence; † August 3, 1946 in Shanghai ) was an Italian pianist and conductor, the significant influence it had that European classical music is now very well known and popular in China.

Life

Paci attended the Conservatory in Naples and won the Liszt Prize in 1895. Subsequently, he undertook extensive tours throughout Europe. Through the intercession of Giacomo Puccini he could later still studying composition and conducting at the Conservatory in Milan.

In December 1918 Paci came to Shanghai to enter in urban Olympic Theatre few piano recitals, but became so ill that he had to be hospitalized. Finally, for various reasons he stayed in Shanghai and took over in 1919, the leadership of the current Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the oldest symphony orchestra in Asia, which had been founded in 1879 as a military marching band. Paci succeeded in the orchestra from 22 to 37 members to zoom in and gave so on 23 November 1919, the first symphony concert in Shanghai, which is the first on the Asian continent at the same time. The program included Beethoven's 5th Symphony, the Serenade for Strings "In the Far West" by Granville Bantock and Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

In 1922 the orchestra in Shanghai Municipal Council Symphony Orchestra was renamed. The audience consisted at first only of the approximately 20,000 living in Shanghai foreigners as Chinese, the concerts were not allowed to visit. Persistent calls Pacis with the city fathers finally led to this regulation was increasingly relaxed. This included the orchestra itself, which originally consisted only of Europeans.

Pacis intercession it is also thanks to that 1927 in Shanghai a " National Vocational School of Music " ( Shanghai Guoli Yinyue Zhuanke Xuexiao ) was founded, now the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (Shanghai Yinyue Xueyuan ). Launched by Cai Yuanpei and Xiao Youmei Institute was the first music college in Asia. One of the teachers as well as to the members of the orchestra was in 1940, the German composer Wolfgang Fraenkel ( 1897-1983 ), who had fled Germany in 1938.

A highlight in the history of the orchestra was the Chinese premiere of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on April 14, 1936 at the already participated numerous Chinese among Pacis line, but not among the singers.

With the beginning of World War II and the Japanese occupation, the situation for the orchestra became increasingly difficult. So Paci saw eventually forced to give a farewell concert on 31 May 1942 and dissolve the orchestra. Only after the war, in October 1950 it was re-established and leads since 1956 the name Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.