Sheet music by Alfredo Catalani
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Catalani was born in Lucca and trained at the Milan Conservatory under Antonio Bazzini.
Despite the growing influence of the verismo style of opera during the 1880s Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner. As a result his operas have largely lost their place in the modern repertoire, even compared to those of Massenet and Puccini, whose style his works most closely resemble.
The influence of Amilcare Ponchielli can also be recognized in Catalani's work. Like Ponchielli, Catalani's reputation now rests almost entirely on one work. However, while La Wally enjoys occasional revivals, Ponchielli's La Gioconda has always been the more popular opera of the two (287 performances to date at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as opposed to only four for La Wally).
In 1893, upon his premature death from tuberculosis in Milan, Catalani was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale, where Ponchielli and conductor Arturo Toscanini also lie. Toscanini was a strong advocate of Catalani's music and named his daughter Wally in recognition of the composer's most successful opera. Toscanini recorded the prelude to Act IV of La Wally and the "Dance of the Water Nymphs" from Loreley in Carnegie Hall in August 1952 with the NBC Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor.