Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in February are:
30 January – 3 February Vivaldi
6-10 February Smetana
13-17 February Tallis
20-24 February Wagner
27 Feb – 3 March Strozzi
Ruggero Leoncavallo was a man on a mission. In 1890, he had watched his younger compatriot Pietro Mascagni achieve global success with the short opera Cavalleria rusticana. With single-minded determination, Leoncavallo set about using the same formula – a gritty tale of poverty, adultery and violent death, all set to impassioned music – to create a hit of his own. Soon enough, his Pagliacci was pleasing audiences throughout Italy and beyond, in due course becoming a regular partner for the work that had inspired it.
was the product of pragmatism – a calculated attempt to make money. In 1892, Leoncavallo was 35 years old, becoming jaded after years of trying to make it as a professional composer, and financially quite desperate. His family background was one of cultured affluence – his father, who hailed from Apulian aristocracy,
