(click image to enlarge)
The pianist, composer and singing teacher, Benedetto Palmieri, was born in Naples on 4 March 1863. He embarked on a career as a pianist at the age of eight, and performed in concerts in Rome, Florence, Milan and Trieste, and internationally in Greece, Egypt and Constantinople. As early as 1878, the Boston periodical, The Musical Record, described him as ‘a musical phenomenon’. He studied composition under Pietro Platania at the Conservatorio di Palermo between 1878 and 1882. In 1885, he moved to London to teach piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, a position that he retained for five years. His compositions, especially songs and piano pieces, were issued from 1888, mostly by the London music publishers, R Cocks & Co and Doremi & Co. In 1898, he married Emily Rose Davidson, and they settled at Flat 45, Lauderdale Mansions, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale. Together they would have a son, Victor (born 1899).
In 1900, the Palmieris moved to Dublin so that Benedetto could teach singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, a position that he retained until the outbreak of the First World War. His private pupils included the writer, James Joyce, who had a few lessons with him in 1904. He later offered to train Joyce for three years free of charge in return for a share of his concert earnings for ten years; however, Joyce declined. Palmieri may have provided the model for Almidano Artifoni, the voice teacher of Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses (1922). While in Dublin, he composed the cantata, Exodus (1904) and an ‘Irish’ symphony (1909), among other works.
Though Palmieri spent the first two years of the First World War in Italy, he returned to London in 1916, to teach again at the Royal College of Music. He probably died in London in 1932.
8 & 10 Ryder Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6QB
gallery@chrisbeetles.com
020 7839 7551
© Chris Beetles Ltd 2025 | Accessibility | Privacy | Sitemap
