Giovanni Ricordi (1785-1853)

Giovanni Ricordi, the son of a glass-maker, devoted himself to studying the violin and became leader of the orchestra of a small theatre in Milan. Observing the musical life of the city at close quarters, he conceived his first commercial venture and set up a stall as a music copyist, supplying orchestral and vocal parts for theatres.

In 1806 his first major contract with the Teatro Carcano provided a more solid foundation for the enterprise, not least because of a clause which guaranteed Giovanni Ricordi ownership of the material copied.

In 1807 his volume of business was already considerable and he was building up archives of his own material, an early example of a music library.

In order to move from the slow and arduous work of copying to the swifter and more profitable process of printing, Giovanni Ricordi set out in the summer of 1807 for Leipzig, where he studied printing techniques for several months with Breitkopf & Härtel.

In January 1808 the document which brought the Ricordi publishing house into existence was drawn up. The first headquarters were Giovanni's own house, two rooms in Contrada di Santa Margherita, the centre of the book trade in old Milan and very close to La Scala. Le stagioni dell'anno by Antonio Nava was edition no. 1 of a long series of publications, whose frenetic rhythm testified to the flourishing state of the business. Giovanni Ricordi gradually acquired all the most recent theatrical works, lining up in his archives - in addition to all the second-rate works - the operas of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Mercadante, as well as those by the young Giuseppe Verdi.

Tito I Ricordi (1811 - 1888)

Although overshadowed by his legendary father, the founder of the dynasty, and his brilliant son Giulio, Tito I was probably the moving spirit of Casa Ricordi in its period of greatest development. He was already working in the firm in 1825, initially as a copper engraver. A highly skilled lithographer and an excellent pianist, he travelled and established friendships with the most celebrated artists of the day. The promoter of Casa Ricordi's cultural initiatives, he was probably responsible for founding the Gazzetta musicale di Milano and organizing concerts with artists such as Liszt, Thalberg, De Bériot and Field, in which he took part personally, playing piano duets with Liszt and accompanying singers like Pasta, Malibran, Donzelli, Lablache and Rubini. He wrote music and devoted much time to the problems of copyright. In 1863 he was among the founders of the Società del Quartetto in Milan.


Giulio Ricordi

With Giulio the Ricordi family reached the height of its achievements. Of the three great Ricordis he was the most "romantic" and the most interested in all aspects of art and culture. His activities were not confined to the field of business: he was a journalist (in 1866 the Gazzetta musicale di Milano was re-born under his editorship), painter, designer, water-colourist, highly accomplished musician and - under the pseudonym of J. Burgmein - composer. In 1879 he founded the Società Orchestrale of La Scala. He played an active role in coaxing the elderly Verdi out of retirement to write Otello and Falstaff, and collaborated closely on the writing of Disposizioni sceniche (detailed staging instructions) and librettos, such as Puccini's La bohème. Giulio Ricordi always had faith in the greatness of Italian art, which he saw embodied first by Verdi, his revered tutelary god, and then by Puccini, whom he felt to be almost his spiritual son, in compensation for the sacrifice of his own artist's soul to the task of running the business - which in any case he felt was his mission. His death brought to an end an era, a way of working and of living. With him vanished the figure of the 19th-century publisher-patron, and of the businessman who is the focus of the life of the whole firm.

Tito II Ricordi (1865 - 1933)

Tito II, educated as an engineer, was a sensitive musician and a brilliant entrepreneur; he travelled to France, Germany, England and America, deeply interested in commercial and industrial organization and in the theatrical life of other countries. On returning to Milan he devoted all his efforts to promoting the success of the family firm throughout the world, and to circulating operas by young Italian composers. His favourites were Zandonai, Montemezzi and Alfano, who shared his admiration for D'Annunzio and drew inspiration from his theatre. Concerned with the perfect realization of performances and supremely demanding with interpreters and conductors, he could be considered the founder of modern operatic production. He helped to organize important tours, such as the one in America in which Madama Butterfly was performed for six consecutive months by a company with three conductors and three protagonists. In San Francisco a theatre which had been destroyed by an earthquake was reconstructed specially for the occasion. Aware of the fundamental importance of publicity, he prepared Puccini's journeys to Buenos Aires and later to New York to ensure that they were unqualified triumphs.