Rosario Scalero (1870-1954)

Music, and its history, often confront music lovers with little-known composers whose music makes it necessary for listeners not only to listen, but also to pay attention to something quite new that, paradoxically, often comes from a glorious past and has been inexorably swept away by Time, or, to put it in a more Dahlahusian way, the “Broom of Time”. This is undoubtedly what happened to the Piedmontese musician Rosario Scalero, who was a violinist, a composer and a teacher. The wonder of these (re)discoveries is almost always followed by an equal wish to know something more about the composer’s life, and he becomes, as sometimes he had done in the past, an object of veneration and heated debates. Though this might not happen with Scalero, there is no doubt that his music arouses a great interest, even at a first, cursory listening.