Enrico Polo

Enrico Polo (18 November 1868 in Parma – 3 December 1953 in Milan) was an Italian violinist, composer and pedagogue. Biography Polo was admitted to the Royal School of Music in Parma (now the Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito) in 1879 studying violin and composition. He graduated in June 1887 with honors and received the Barbacini Prize for outstanding graduate of his class. He was a close friend of orchestra director Arturo Toscanini from the earliest years of study in Parma. In the fall of 1887, Toscanini was to conduct Giuseppe Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata and requested Polo to play the lengthy violin solo at the end of Act III. In 1893, with the financial support of Count Stefano Sanvitale, Polo went to Berlin to study with Joseph Joachim. In 1903 Polo was appointed Professor of Violin at the Milan Conservatory where he was an influential teacher for more than thirty years. In 1906, he founded the Quartetto Polo along with violinist Costantino Soragna, violist Guglielmo “Willy” Koch and cellist Camillo Moro. The quartet performed to great acclaim in Milan and throughout Europe. During World War I, Soragna was replaced by Michelangelo Abbado, a student of Polo at th