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552:& others) states: "He displays grace, exquisite taste, and perfect technique. His guitar emits unheard harmonious sounds. He is a remarkable artist, one of a kind. In the hands of this unique artist, the guitar unveils unimaginable notes and shades. He impresses the public with his pleasant, warm, and always measured voice. However, what reveals his interpretative, instrumental, and vocal arts are Italian folk songs, where he remains unchallenged."
305:". Although he often performed for the best social circles and even for royalty, Meschi never commercialized his music. Proud of his ascetic lifestyle, he settled for a small donation at concerts. "Of the unnecessary, I do not care", he said, and "Musicians should create music also for the poor, in fact, mainly for the poor." A noise and a conversation carried on during his performance were sometimes enough for him to refuse to play again.
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In April 1926, Ernest
Collins of Collins & Lewis Productions Ltd. engaged Meschi for one year in London. The BBC also hired him for a radio audition. During this stay, he received wide coverage from British media. An article described him as a "strange and picturesque man believed to be the last
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and bought in March 1924 in Cento near
Ferrara. His great skill, next to his instrumental skill, was his unique vocal ability, a voice that matched the originality of his repertoire. His baritone voice rose well beyond its natural texture. Meschi had a thin but "penetrating and persuasive" voice, a
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Marco
Bazzotti, Tista Meschi, Italo Meschi chitarrista e cantore. 30 brani per chitarra sola, canto e chitarra, edited by T. Meschi, M. Bazzotti (Lucca's Academy of Arts and Sciences: Italo Meschi, guitar player and singer. Thirty pieces for solo guitar, song and guitar), 2011 (Maria Pacini Fazzi
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may have led to the decision. His having held "more rallies than concerts" when he received the "extradition order" may have been the root of the problem. According to a written eyewitness account, "the day after his last concert in San
Francisco, thugs attacked him tearing to pieces his guitar".
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Forty years after his death his long-forgotten trove of writings, compositions, and mementos began to resurface thanks to his closest relatives. Their rediscovery and appreciation by experts places Meschi among the great guitarists of the first half of the 20th century. His repertoire ranges
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for organ. It is unclear which Bach music Meschi interpreted in his concerts. However, postwar years' evidence suggests the challenge of mastering such difficult pieces on the harp guitar had become for him almost an obsession. The Italo Meschi archive resides at the Banca del Monte di Lucca.
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referred to his "sincere and incorruptible spirit which did not allow bending to the demands of our modern consumer society". "Therein lies the commercial handicap", had written,three decades earlier, British author
Constance Vaughan in her article "The Last of the Troubadours", after having
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Italo Meschi never married. "Admired and coveted by many beautiful women, yet always absorbed in his musical environment, he valued them precious little", wrote his brother Mario. During the war years, at age 56, he fell in love with a younger woman with a long and inconclusive relationship.
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Laura Bedini, edited by, “Italo Meschi
Cantore della Terra Lucchese – Poesie, riflessioni, testimonianze”, Istituto Storico della Resistenza e dell’Età Contemporanea di Lucca, (Italo Meschi, Lucca's Singer – Poems, writings, accounts published by Lucca's Modern History Institute), Nero su
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Meschi was a near anarchist, pacifist, and nature lover who dressed in linen in summer and winter. A tireless walker, tall and handsome, he wore a beard with long reddish-blond hair, and his bare feet were in
Franciscan footwear. The British press of the 1920s described him as "The Last
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Il
Cronista Errante (The Wandering Chronicler) Vite, avventure e confessioni della più ricca barba di Lucchesia, (Life, adventures, and secrets of Lucca's most beautiful beard), unsigned, in “II Mattino dell'Italia Centrale” (newspaper for central Italy), Friday September 26,
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His father
Innocenzo Meschi was a tailor and his mother Filomena Bianchi a laundry worker. He had four siblings. He was a good student, but abandoned school after the fifth grade. He received his first musical lessons at the age of six, in the famous institute where
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Romolo
Ferrari e la chitarra in Italia nella prima metà del Novecento (Romolo Ferrari and Italian guitar in the first half of the 20th century), edited by Simona Boni, Modena: Mucchi, 2009. It contains information about Italo Meschi at pages 19, 109, 232, 306,
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wrote: "Apparently Mr. Meschi has artistic attributes quite as impressive as his appearance. I enjoyed immensely Mr. Meschi's playing and singing. His interpretation of the Italian classics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a revelation to me."
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Meschi loved Bach's polyphony. He spent much of his time transcribing pieces before playing them at concerts with his harp guitar. A dozen of his manuscripts have recently been found including a 1948 transcription of Bach's famous
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studied; but his parents took him out after the first year. Later he fell in love with the guitar, buying his first instrument at age 14. Around 1903, at age 16, his parents sent him to Lucca's Customs House to work as a porter.
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and the simplicity of a child. The first part of the programme was devoted mostly to old Italian songs and arias, hauntingly beautiful things rendered still finer by this troubadour's full, sonorous voice and reverent manner."
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modular voice considering the rigor of sixteenth century arias, the great verve, and force of the Tuscan stornelli (folk songs) or of the mountain folk songs he picked up during his wandering and so loved to perform.
425:. In Lucca, he lived in a humble one-room flat on top of the Saint Gervasio tower part of the medieval city gate, his only possessions a small table, a chair, a bed, and his inseparable harp guitar or "wooden wife".
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In Lucca, people referred to him as the "Christ" for his long thick beard and Nazarene-style hair. Devout in his own way, he had disagreements with the Church. To honour his art, locals called him "Maestro Italo".
509:. There he worked the land, tended sheep, and wrote poetry. His poems carry a message against war, greed, environmental degradation, moral, and cultural disorientation. Many also deal with an unfulfilled love.
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Guitar maker Bruno Mattei built Meschi's first two harp guitars. Years later he performed with a harp guitar named Ala d'Aquila ("Eagle Wing"). As told by Meschi himself, it was built specifically for him by
367:. Later he began to give concerts. He made his debut at the Arillaga Music College of San Francisco on 19 June 1919. His programme covered Italian vocal music from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
486:". Based on mathematical postulates, Hallesism favoured a new system for regulating international trade (regulating it equitably and efficiently for the benefit of the entire world community). The
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Riccardo Marasco, Chi cerca trova. Vita e canti di Toscana, (Who seeks finds. Lives and songs of Tuscany) Florence: Birba, 1977, 191 p. (The chapter about I. Meschi is at pages 57–71).
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authorities, including a documented failure to report at the headquarters of the regional fascist group. For years, he had been a member of a socioeconomic project known as "
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Carlo Carfagna, – Mario Gangi, Dizionario chitarristico italiano, (Italian Guitar Dictionary) Ancona : Berben, 1968, 97 p. (The entry Italo Meschi is at page 45).
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Guglielmo Lera, Italo Meschi – Lucchese geniale, (Italo Meschi, Lucca's brilliant artist), p. 15-16, unknown edition, undated (but surely written after 1957).
520:(The Holy Face). Among his last performances, before his final illness, is the one of 25 October 1954 at the Teatro dell'Arte al Parco in Milan, broadcast by the
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who left behind recipes and recommendations for food deficiencies. As an early environmentalist, he laid out a plan on how to make his town livable.
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Alfredo Bonaccorsi, Il folklore musicale in Toscana, (Tuscany's Musical Folklore), Florence : L. S. Olschki, 1956, p. 148-49.
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Toward the end of 1919, he returned to Italy, and in the 1920s he began to tour Europe performing in many cities including
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Musica.in.cucina / Italo.Meschi (Music in the kitchen), edited by Tista Meschi, Pacini Fazzi : Lucca, 2011, 32 p.
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Guglielmo Lera, "Un musicista," (A Musician) in “La Provincia di Lucca”, April–June 1973, XIII, n. 2, p. 100-106.
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Alfred Frankenstein, Pianist Italian Bard Give Initial Sunday Recitals, San Francisco Chronicle, January 4, 1937.
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Alfredo Bonaccorsi, Canti toscani (Tuscan Songs), in Comoedia, year XVI, 15 April-15 May 1929, p. 33-34.
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Back in Italy, he resumed his concerts in Rome, in Dolomites hotels, on the Italian Riviera, and in
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Alfredo Bonaccorsi, Cinque melodie popolari, in “Musica d’Oggi”, XXII, n. 6, 1940, p. 160-163.
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On 25 June 1936, Italo Meschi returned to the United States for his third and last time. In 1937,
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made two recordings of Italo Meschi's New York concert of 6 June 1929. On the first he played
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line. In 1913, the Railways fired him for absenteeism. That same year Meschi left Italy for
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He died of a lung ailment and in poverty at age 70 in the village of Carignano near Lucca.
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did not extend Meschi's visa past 29 May 1937. He always referred to his departure as an "
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It may require cleanup to comply with Knowledge (XXG)'s content policies, particularly
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In 1907, he passed the Italian Railways competitive exam becoming a brakeman on the
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Constance Vaughan, The Last of the Troubadours, Daily Sketch, London 16 July 1926.
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At his concerts, Meschi also played a Beethoven aria, a nocturne, a rhapsody (
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throughout the Italian peninsula including a performance in front of King
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Gregg Miner, Riccardo Sarti, Italo Meschi, the Last Italian Troubadour)
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He also composed his own pieces. His works included two lullabies,
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Back in Italy, Italo Meschi ran into problems with the
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A major contributor to this article appears to have a
650:In October 1957, a day after his death, the daily
618:,"La Poesia" , "Il Brivido" , and "La Mia Sera".
546:Dictionary of Italian Guitarists and Lute-Makers
357:At age 26, "he learned how to read music at the
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494:to a mental institution where he died in 1940.
703:http://harpguitars.net/players/italo/italo.htm
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454:on its back. He has the beard and head of a
50:Learn how and when to remove these messages
245:Learn how and when to remove this message
227:Learn how and when to remove this message
170:Learn how and when to remove this message
100:Learn how and when to remove this message
727:, 2017 (CreateSpace, an Amazon Company).
705:, October 2005 – Updated October, 2010.
464:Immigration and Naturalization Service
421:, Switzerland, where he performed for
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338:. Official records show he arrived at
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