Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

Fagan, Eleanora.

See Holiday, Billie.

Fagan, Gideon

(b Somerset West, 3 Nov 1904; d Cape Town, 21 March 1980). South African conductor and composer. He studied at the College of Music, Cape Town (1916–22), and at the Royal College of Music, London, with Boult, Sargent and Vaughan Williams (1922–6). While at the RCM he conducted Hänsel und Gretel at the Parry Opera Theatre and directed the leading London orchestras. After a brief return to South Africa (1926–7) he took up residence in London, conducting touring theatre companies, arranging and composing light music, and appearing as a guest conductor. He assisted Ernest Irving at the Ealing film studios (1934–9) and was conductor of the BBC Northern SO (1939–42); later he appeared with the BBC and other orchestras. Having returned to South Africa to accept the associate conductorship of the Johannesburg City Orchestra (1949–52), he remained there on the staff of the SABC, of which he became music director (1963–6). He then lectured on conducting, composition, orchestration and counterpoint at the University of Cape Town (1967–73). Ilala (1941), exhibiting most of the hallmarks of his style, has a strong lyrical quality, slow-moving Impressionistic harmonies and a fine sense for orchestral sonorities. In the later Karoo Symphony (1976–7) the harmonies are more strident and contrapuntally conceived. His brother Johannes Fagan (1898–1920) was a composer of remarkable promise.

WORKS

(selective list)

Orch: Nocturne, 1926; Ilala, tone poem, 1941; South African Folktune Suite, 1942; 5 Pieces, 1948–9; Concert Ov., D, 1954; Heuwelkruin, pf, orch, 1954; SABC Anniversary Ov., 1957; Fanfare for Radio South Africa, 1966; Albany, ov., 1970; Ex unitate vires, sym. sketch, 1970; Serenade, str, 1974; Karoo Sym., 1976–7

Vocal: Wagter op die toring (H.A. Fagan), Bar, orch, 1926; Slampamperliedjie no.1 ‘Wys my die plek’ (C. Louis Leipoldt), 1v, orch, 1941; Tears (W. Whitman), sym. poem, 1v, chorus, orch, 1954, after material by J. Fagan; My lewe (Totius), Bar, fl, cl, pf qnt, 1970

Chbr and solo inst: Danse des harpies, pf, 1929; Nonet, 1958; 2 Mood Sketches, pf, 1968

Film scores, songs to South African and Eng. verse

G.F. STEGMANN/JAMES MAY

Fage, Jean de la.

See La Fage, Jean de.

Faggioli, Michelangelo

(b Naples, 1666; d Naples, 23 Nov 1733). Italian composer. He came from a family of lawyers and in 1687 received the doctorate at the University of Naples in both canon and civil law. He composed, apparently in 1706, the music for the earliest known comic opera in Neapolitan dialect, La Cilla (text by F.A. Tullio), which was ‘splendidly produced’ on 26 December 1707 in the palace of Fabrizio Carafa, Prince of Chiusiano, to celebrate the return of Carafa's son from Spain; the libretto indicates, however, that the work had already been performed in the preceding year. Its novelty was such as to occasion comment in contemporary Neapolitan journals, and Faggioli himself, in his dedicatory letter, shows awareness of having created something new, begging forebearance and protection for it. Further performances held in Carafa's palace in January 1708 attest its success. In this prototype of dialect comic operas all the characters sing in Neapolitan. The plot is a romantic farce set in a village, with comic effects arising from the devices of mistaken identity and transvestite disguise. Some 66 short arias, duets and trios, spaced without any apparent plan, frequently interrupt the action; the exit aria is not yet a standardized feature. The music is lost, but Faggioli's style in this genre can be seen in a comic cantata with dialect text for soprano solo and continuo, Lo Paglietta (I-Nc), containing two da capo arias in a simple, tuneful melodic style with competent but unadventurous harmony. Faggioli also wrote an oratorio in 1709 (text by L. Perone; title and occasion unknown). This music too is lost, but another solo cantata, Didone abbandonata da Enea (I-Nc), attributed to him, shows that he was a capable if not brilliant composer of serious music: the pathetic text is expressively set, with demands for greater vocal agility than in the comic work and with greater harmonic elaboration. Another cantata for solo voice and basso continuo, Su le fiorite sponde, survives (in I-Nc) and his scherzo drammatico La partenope divota e Lucifero abbatatuo (text by L. Gianni) was performed on 13 June 1717 a the Palazzo Juvarra on the occasion of the feast of St Antony of Padua.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SartoriL

M. Scherillo: L'opera buffa napoletana durante il Settecento: storia letteraria (Naples, 1883, 2/1916/R), 115

F. Piovano: ‘Baldassare Galuppi: note bio-bibliografiche’, RMI, xiii (1906), 676–726; xiv (1907), 333–65; xv (1908), 233–74

U. Prota-Giurleo: Nicola Logroscino, ‘il dio dell'opera buffa’ (la vita e le opere) (Naples, 1927), 49

C. Sartori: ‘Gli Scarlatti a Napoli: nuovi contributi’, RMI, xlvi (1942), 374–90

F. Cotticelli and P. Maione: Onesto divertimento, ed allegria de' popoli: materiali per una storia dello spettacolo a Napoli nel primo Settecento (Milan, 1996)

JAMES L. JACKMAN/PAOLOGIOVANNI MAIONE

Fagius, Hans

(b Norrköping, 10 April 1951). Swedish organist. Fagius studied with Alf Linder at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (1970–75), then privately with Duruflé in Paris. He made his début in Stockholm in 1974 and has since given concerts in many parts of the world, concentrating on Baroque and Romantic repertory. In the 1980s he taught at Göteborgs Musikhögskola and Royal College of Music in Stockholm and was appointed professor at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen in 1989. He gave complete Bach recitals in Stockholm (1983–4) and Copenhagen (1996) and has recorded organ symphonies by Widor and organ works by Saint-Saëns and Romantic Swedish composers, as well as the complete Bach organ music. In 1998 he joined the staff of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm.

HANS ÅSTRAND