Alessandro Parisotti

Alessandro Parisotti (24 July 1853 – 4 April 1913) was an Italian composer and music editor. Life and career Though also a composer, Alessandro Parisotti is better known today as the original editor of a collection of songs known as Arie antiche (Arie antiche: ad una voce per canto e pianoforte, Milan, 1885–1888). The original collection comprises three volumes of songs or arias published as a primer to study classical singing, but the three volumes have since been reduced to single-volumed extracts known as the 24 Italian Songs and Arias. The original Arie Antiche are still available through Ricordi, Schirmer, and Kalmus. Parisotti collected these antique arias (arie antiche is the Italian) in what was the 19th century vogue for discovering forgotten old or antique music from the classical and baroque eras. The most famous example of this practice of reclaiming forgotten music is Mendelssohn’s revival of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Berlin (1829). The taste for rediscovered music was de rigueur among musicians and audiences of the nineteenth century, with composers lesser than Mendelssohn and Brahms participating as well. Parisotti found forgotten scores and arranged their arias