Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata

He composed some ballets, but his attempts to write a comic opera were opposed by the producers, who forced him instead to debut with a dramma, Iginia d'Asti, first seen in Pisa in 1838 but was immediately jeered at in Bologna few months later (see also the section Librettos).

[7] In this atmosphere of disillusion, he started to alternate journalism with public administrative duties: he was part of the board of directors of the railroad in Livorno,[5][7] was gonfalonier in Fiesole, and town counselor/representative in Florence.

[2] Two of his most famous reviews were those of the debut of Macbeth by Verdi at the Pergola in 1847 (a very long review that was published in the Gazzetta musicale di Milano between 11 April and 2 June 1847), in which he judged the music as pleasant, but defined the libretto as a sequel of "a great deal of rubbish";[8] and that of the first representation in Italy, at the Pergola in 1843, of Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber, judged as unbalanced between the wind instruments and strings.

[6][2] In fact, his articles inspired the Philharmonic Association in Florence (from 1859 Teodulo Mabellini was the orchestral director) to perform the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Gounod and Meyerbeer.

[7] By royal decree of Victor Emmanuel II the school was entirely separated from the academy and became its own independent institution on 15 March 1860 with Pacini still as director.

He wrote papers about people such as Francesco Nigetti (the inventor of the cembalo a cinque tastiere) and Father Mauro dei Servi di Maria (theorist of the sixteen-hundreds).

[3][6] His autographs of sacred music are found in the Archive of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata; however, because specific studies have not been carried out, the exact number of pieces is unknown.

The lack of specific research regarding the musical possessions of Italian parishes doesn’t allow for the affirmation of how extensive the spread of his sacred works is.

However, the presence of a collection of his psalms in Turin (Biblioteca del Capitolo Metropolitano),[21] of an Ave Maria in Naples,[33] a Salve Regina in Pistoia[34] and some masses in the archive of the Sant'Antimo Church in Piombino, discovered by Musical Documentation Center of Tuscany,[35] would indicate that the spread of his works is very large.

The Palatina Library in Parma has the first edition (around 1831) of the Variazioni per pianoforte on a theme from Sonnambula by Bellini, printed by Artaria (Milan) and Lucherini (Florence),[39] work that was published in the variation for harp by Ricordi.

[45][46] The Paideia publishers of Brescia and Bärenreiter of Kassel printed one of his complete masses, Messa completa, in 1981[47] One of his letters to Ricordi from 1845 is preserved at the French National Library.