(Eng. Leghorn).
City in Italy, on the coast of Tuscany. Founded at the end of the 16th century by the Medici grand dukes, it acquired commercial, cultural and civic importance in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of its documents were destroyed during World War II. The Medici encouraged people of various nationalities and creeds to settle in the new city. The Sephardi Jewish community, still large today, was of particular importance; their synagogue chants were collected and transcribed by Federico Consolo at the end of the 19th century. A Sacra rappresentazione di S Orsola was performed in 1514 in the parish church of S Giulia. The organ of the parish church of S Francesco (later collegiate church and then cathedral) was built in 1596 by Francesco Palmieri and Giorgio Steiniger. The first maestro di cappella there was appointed in 1632 and the first cathedral organist in 1785, with the title of maestro di cappella and the option of conducting the theatre orchestra. Music featured here and in the lesser churches especially on feast days, for which musicians from Pisa and Lucca were engaged. Notable maestri di cappella include C.A. Campioni (?1752–62); a description of a typical church music performance (with his music) is given in a letter by Anton Raaff to Padre Martini in 1752. In the 18th century oratorios were sung in the cathedral and other churches, in the meeting-places of confraternities and in the Teatro Avvalorati.
There was a ‘commissario delle bande’ in Livorno castle by 1600. From mid-century in the Palazzo Granducale, festivities held to honour visiting foreign notables included concerts and opera. The first recorded opera performance, at Carnival 1656–7, was of Cavalli's Giasone, by the Fedeli company. In 1658 the Teatro Nuovo (also called Teatro delle Commedie or Teatro S Sebastiano) was inaugurated; it was the scene of Francesco Gasparini's and Carlo Goldoni's first successes. It closed in 1779 and was replaced by the Teatro degli Armeni (1782–1944; later Avvalorati), inaugurated with the première of Cherubini's Adriano in Siria. Other theatres were the Carlo Lodovico (1806–1944; also called dei Floridi or S Marco); the Rossini (1842–1944; also called dei Fulgidi); the Leopoldo (inaugurated 1847; also called Caporali or Goldoni), which was restored in the late 20th century; and the Politeama (inaugurated in 1878 and demolished 1968). During the 19th century opera was also performed in private theatres (the Pellettier; the Vecchio Giardinetto, also called Gherardi del Testa or Strozzi); arenas (the S Cosimo or Labronica; the Teatro Diurno or Arena degli Acquedotti or Alfieri; the Arena Garibaldi) and the outdoor summer Teatro (Teatrino) della Fiera. The theatre-cinemas La Gran Guardia and I Quattro Mori were built after World War II.
Concerts were usually given in the theatres. The violinist Pietro Nardini, with G.M. Cambini, Filippo Manfredi and Luigi Boccherini, formed the Quartetto Toscano in the mid-18th century – perhaps the first established quartet in history. There are small recital rooms in the Istituto Musicale P. Mascagni (named after the composer, a native of Livorno), the Museo Fattori and the Villa Corridi. Open-air concerts take place in the summer theatre of Villa Mimbelli, and the Fortezza Vecchia and Fortezza Nuova of the Medici.
In the second half of the 19th century the orchestral players and choruses employed in the theatres formed such associations as the Società Orchestrale Livornese and the Società del Quartetto a Corda (1881). Other 19th-century institutions were the Società per gli Esercizi Musicali (1809), the Società Filarmonica (c1839), the Società della Banda Nazionale, the Banda Musicale Volontaria Livornese (1844), the Società Corale di Dilettanti and two choral societies, the Costanza e Concordia (1894; later called Mascagni) and the Guido Monaco (1900), both still active. Early in the 20th century the Circolo Mandolinistico G. Verdi had many members. Concert series were organized by the Amici della Musica and Diapason, amalgamated in 1950 as the Associazioni Riunite Concerti, and by the municipality.
In 1847 the Pie Scuole Israelitiche had a music school. The Schola Cantorum G.B. Pergolesi was founded in 1872 at the church of S Benedetto; the first city music schools were the free school for string instruments in the Teatro Goldoni (?1867), the school run by the Società Filarmonica (?1877) and, most important, the Istituto Musicale Livornese (later renamed after Cherubini), founded in 1875 by Alfredo Soffredini, whose pupils there included Mascagni. The successful Orchestra Labronica (1937) was founded by Emilio Gragnani but disbanded because of the war. Some of its members founded the Istituto Musicale P. Mascagni (1953), whose activities include teaching, management of a youth orchestra and concerts, and musicology; its library holds materials on local music history, arranges conferences and issues publications. The Associazione Aulòs – Accademia Italiana dei Legni (1987) carries out research on wind instruments; the Centro Studi Mascagnani collects manuscripts and memorabilia of the composer and organizes conferences.
The violin makers Gaetano Bastogi, Francesco Magri, Francesco Meiberi and the Gragnani family were active in Livorno. The Cresci family made keyboard instruments in the 18th century, and Giovanni Galeazzi may have made flutes in the 19th. The Armenian typographer Yovhannes of Jaffa worked in Livorno (1640–45), and Marco Coltellini's firm printed the first edition (1755–62) of Francesco Algarotti's Saggio sopra l'opera in musica. At the beginning of the 19th century Fedele Gilardi printed works by Filippo Gragnani. During the city's commercial and cultural heyday dealers in music and instruments (Moniglia, Masi etc.) flourished. In the 19th century Gaspare Bigotti made pianolas. The recording company Fonè has its headquarters in Livorno.
DEUMM (R. Chiti, C. Gianturco)
ES (A. Guerrieri)
GroveO (R. Chiti)
Lunario ecclesiastico, colla spiegazione delle feste principali, funzioni sacre, processioni ed altre cose notabili che si costumano nella città di Livorno (per cura di P.B. Armeni) (Lucca, 1738)
G. Vivoli: Annali di Livorno (Livorno, 1842–6)
Nuova Guida civile e commerciale della città e portofranco di Livorno (Livorno, 1847)
F. Pera: Ricordi e biografie livornesi (Livorno, 1867)
F. Consolo: Sefer Shiré Israel (Florence, 1892)
E. Grassi: Le accademie di Livorno (diss., U. of Pisa, 1937)
E. Toaff: Storia di un organo (?Livorno, 1949)
P. Petrobelli: ‘The Italian Years of Anton Raaff’, MJb 1973–4, 233–73; esp. 238, 248–9
B.M. Antolini: ‘Editori, copisti, commercio della musica in Italia, 1770–1800’,Studi musicali, xviii (1989), 273–375
R. Chiti: L'Istituto musicale pareggiato ‘P. Mascagni’ di Livorno: genesi e storia (diss., U. of Pisa, 1989)
D. Bedarida: ‘Cenni sulla musica sinagogale livornese’, Comune notizie, i (1991), 57–9
R. Chiti and F.Marri: Testi drammatici per musica della Biblioteca Labronica di Livorno (Livorno, 1991–4)
P.P. Donati and R.Giorgetti: L'organo di Colognole: appunti di arte organaria livornese (Lucca, 1991)
E. Porta: ‘La cappella musicale del Duomo di Livorno’, Luigi Niccolini: compositore, organista e maestro di cappella nella Collegiata di Livorno (diss., U. of Pisa, 1992), 12–28
ROSSANA CHITI, CAROLYN GIANTURCO