Aurelio Giorni

Aurelio was born on September 15, 1895 in Perugia, Italy. Perugia was the site of that year's annual sojourn away from Rome, where the family lived at 47 Via Ezio. He was the first of two sons born to Carlo Giuseppe Giorni (1850-1928), a Roman landscape painter and landowner of Italian-Danish descent, and Linda Bergner Giorni (1860-1937), an American mezzo-soprano of Germanic (Saxon) origin. Aurelio was also the great-grandson of famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. A midwife attended the birth and he was later baptised, as a Catholic, Aurelio Carlo Pietro Teodoro, his middle names honoring in turn his father, paternal and maternal grandfathers. The second son, Aurelio's brother, was Marcello Alberto Thorvaldsen, born December 17, 1902. The family were typical middle-class Italian intelligentsia: they had two maids and spent long periods away from Rome in the summer, often in Switzerland.

Aurelio's parents, particularly his mother, noted his musical aptitude at age 6 and he was accordingly tutored privately at home until, at age 13, he attended Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music and studied piano with Maestro Giovanni Sgambati and Ferruccio Busoni from 1909 to 1911, winning 1st prize.

Aurelio Giorni portrait - The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts / Music Division (Muller Collection)

He gave joint recitals with his mother Linda as early as February 1908 when he was barely 12 years old.[2] One such performance took place at the Hotel Excelsior in Rome on March 23, 1911. The press notice read as follows:[3]

 The Giorni Concert at the Hotel Excelsior, attracted a very large number of ladies and gentlemen who are already aware of the unusual musical gifts possessed by Madame Linda Giorni & her son, Aurelio.
 All the numbers of the program were well received, and while the singing of Madame Giorni has been for several years the admiration of the Roman public, the remarkable interpretation give by Aurelio Giorni, (only 15 years old, and yet a composer of merit) added much to the novelty and interest. He played compositions by Bach, Chopin, Scarlatti and Sgambati in a manner which astonished and delighted the audience. His success was all the more marked because an unfortunate accident had happened to the piano, and the young musician was obliged to play without the use of the pedals. Madame Giorni sang arie & remanse by Haendel, Sgambati, Tschaikovsky, Brahms & Strauss, as well as compositions by Aurelio Giorni, who accompanied his mother on the piano.

(The above incident, referred to as The Broken Pedal, was used as the title of his daughter Elena's biography, for which much of this article is based.)

Aurelio graduated from Santa Cecilia with a perfect score, under age (15) when he did so, enabling him to enter the Meisterschule für Komposition (Master School for Composition) in Berlin from 1911 to 1913. There he studied composition with German composer Engelbert Humperdinck and Russian-born pianist/conductor/composer Ossip Gabrilowitsch.

Aurelio was 16 when he took leave and returned to Rome to perform as soloist in the César Franck Symphonic Variations and the Chopin E Minor Concerto at the Augusteo on February 8, 1912, an event he won in competition at Santa Cecilia. It was also in Rome in 1912 when Aurelio and his future wife, Helen Emerson Miller (1897-1988), first met while she was living in the Hotel Bel Cito in Rome with her mother and sister from 1912-1913.

Aurelio returned to his studies in Berlin until he returned to Rome in November 1913 for some concerts there. Aurelio was known in Rome as the "wonder child" of Carlo and Linda and was considered a remarkable pianist and composer at only 17 years old.[4] Between 1913 and 1915 he had tours in Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Scandinavia.[5]

On coming to America in the fall of 1914, Aurelio first stayed with his mother's sister, Emma Bergner Sajous and her husband Charles E. de M. Sajous in Philadelphia. When he moved, it was to two residences, one in New York City and one in Philadelphia, the latter for convenience as he had a number of pupils there. It was in New York City that he maintained his studio at 100 Carnegie Hall, and renewed his acquaintance with the Miller family.

In 1918, after America entered World War I, Aurelio enlisted at Fort Hamilton, N.Y., exiting as a Private in the U.S. Army. This military service lasted just 6 months but would later hasten his eligibility for U.S. citizenship. In 1919 he joined the Elshuco Trio and began concertizing in New York City and would perform with them over the next 15 years. Aurelio was an active member of The Bohemians, a New York Musicians Club that began in 1907 and continues to this day.[6]

Aurelio returned to Italy to visit his parents in the summer of 1919, and it was that autumn that he began making some 24 known piano rolls for the Duo-Art reproducing piano.

In May 1920, Aurelio and Helen became engaged while together on the commuter ferry between New York and New Jersey.

The Giorni Family in 1929

Aurelio Giorni and Helen Miller were married on January 1, 1921 in the (Episcopal) Church of the Holy Communion in South Orange, New Jersey, with the rector, Rev. George Hanna, officiating. For the wedding day, Aurelio had composed "for Helen" the processional and recessional wedding march, and it replaced the more familiar strains of Mendelssohn or Wagner. His music would also be used for some family weddings in the years to come. The wedding party contained several family members, among them was Helen's sister Marguerite as matron of honor, and Aurelio's brother Marcello as best man. A reception was held at the Miller home for some 250 guests. The newlyweds decided to forego a honeymoon at this time, when it would interfere with both their schedules. They planned a trip to Italy during the summer to visit his parents, but by spring Helen knew she was pregnant and the trip was postponed. Instead of Europe, they joined the other members of the Elshuco Trio for a summer in Maine.

The Elshuco Trio in 1929

The Elshuco Trio was formed in 1918 with founding members Samuel Gardner (violin), Willem Willeke (violincello), and Richard Epstein (piano). Willem Willeke was the leader and remained the only cellist throughout the groups existence. The unusual first name was derived from the first syllables of the name of their patroness, Elizabeth Shurtleff Coolidge (1864-1953), who established the Berkshire String Quartet in 1916 and started the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival at South Mountain, Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1918. The group had its first public performance at Aeolian Hall in midtown Manhattan in New York City on October 31, 1918.[9]

Aurelio joined the group in the summer of 1919 after Richard Epstein's death.[10] Late in 1919, Reber Johnson also played with the group briefly.[11] By 1920, Elias Breeskin had replaced Samual Gardner on violin.[12] Elias Breeskin left in 1921 and was replaced by William Kroll the following year, who stayed with the group until 1929, when he was replaced by Karl Kraeuter.

The Trio sometimes played for the annual Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music in South Mountain, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.[13] Other known appearances reported where:

The last performance of the Elshuco Trio was their final concert of their 15th season on March 7, 1933 in the United Engineering Societies auditorium (New York), and was augmented for the occasion by Conrad Held, violinist. The works played were the two Brahms piano quartets, in A Major, Op. 26, and G Minor, Op. 25.[14]

The following list shows the known recordings Aurelio Giorni made for Duo-Art beginning around 1919.[15] Some of these piano rolls are in the archives of the University of Maryland Music Library.

° Selections listed in the University of Maryland catalog.

°° The only other known commercial recording of a Giorni composition (Musicraft Album No. 33, published June 1939). This charmingly naive little Pastorale was written in 1908, when Aurelio (then 13 years old) had studied harmony, counterpoint and composition for 4 years.

The following list, provided by the Library of Congress Music Division in 1985, represents all the recordings made by the Elshuco Trio which are known to be extant at the time, in 5 large American libraries. There are three known early recordings which are not on this list - "Narcissus" and "Rosary" by Nevin and one of the Hungarian Dances by Brahms. Stanford University (CST) also has annotated copies of pages from the Brunswick catalogs of 1923 and 1925, where it is noted that these selections were chosen for popular appeal rather than a representative sampling of their repertoire.

° CST - Stanford University; CTY - Yale University; DLC - Library of Congress; NN - New York Public Library; NSY - Syracuse University

°° Re-issued

NOTE: Early in 1969, Helen Giorni donated to (1) Exchange & Gift (Music) Division, Library of Congress, and (2) New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division, all of Aurelio's music in her files, whether published or not. This was all cataloged and two lists were prepared, one for each library.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPLPA) has numerous scores from the Giorni estate cataloged under call number JPB 83-61.[16]

• WorldCat Identity for Giorni, Aurelio 1895-1938, 30 works in 33 publications in 3 languages and 111 library holdings
• Duo-Art rolls available at spencerserolls.com played by Aurelio Giorni
• The Ellis Island Ship Database page showing Aurelio and Marcello returning from Italy on the Ryndam in September 1920 (passengers #163 and #164).
• Aurelio Giorni on Facebook
• Piano Music for the Left Hand Alone (G) (short bio)

• This article is largely based on the book The Broken Pedal: A Biographical Sketch of Pianist/Composer Aurelio Giorni, 1895-1938 and His Family, a privately published work by Elena G. Burns (daughter, 1921-1998) during 1985/86 in Whittier, California. Although distribution was limited mainly to family members, copies were also provided to the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library.