Polo was admitted to the Royal School of Music in Parma (now the Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito) in 1879 studying violin and composition.
[2] 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.
[1][2] In 1906, he founded the Quartetto Polo along with violinist Costantino Soragna, violist Guglielmo "Willy" Koch and cellist Camillo Moro.
During World War I, Soragna was replaced by Michelangelo Abbado, a student of Polo at the Conservatory, and Moro by Riccardo Malipiero.
In 1910, Polo and pianist Enrico Consolo gave the first Italian performance of the complete cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven's ten Violin Sonatas.