Guido Chigi Saracini

Count Guido Chigi Saracini (Siena, 8 March 1880 – Siena, 18 November 1965), full name Guido Chigi degli Useppi Saracini Lucherini, was an Italian patrician, a musical patron and composer, and a public administrator. Having inherited the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini in the centre of the city of Siena, Tuscany, he applied his musical instincts to his new opportunities, restored the Palazzo in 1923, and established a concert society and later a musical academy there. The Accademia Chigiana, which flourishes today, grew under his supervision into a famous institution for higher instruction, research and performance in chamber music, playing an important role in the revival of Italian baroque instrumental music, and in the advocacy and performance of contemporary Italian classical music. Concert Hall at the Palazzo Chigi Saracini, auditorium and organ.

Chigi Saracini, who lent his authority to various cultural projects and public forums in Siena, through his academy and through the September music festival "Settimane musicali" which he established in 1939, gave to Siena an international musical reputation: leading world musicians brought their experience and example to its work and performances, while the international tours of the Quintetto Chigiano, and the Quartetto Italiano (which coalesced at the academy in 1942) spread the example of its excellence. During his life, Count Chigi Saracini maintained personal involvement in the development and direction of his Academy, and endowed it as a Foundation in 1961, thereby assuring its continuation after his death.

Education and first years Guido Chigi Saracini was a scion of the noble Sienese House of Chigi, of ancient origins and of diverse musical interests: one of his forebears was a pupil of Claudio Monteverdi and others were violists and singers. Guido, the son of Antonio Chigi Saracini and Giulia Griccioli, studied violin at the Florence Conservatory. In 1905 he married Bianca Kaschmann, daughter of the Austrian-American baritone Joseph Kaschmann.

In 1908 he established the "Quintetto Senese" (the Siena Quintet, a pianoforte and string quartet ensemble led by violinist Piero Baglioni), whose concerts he funded and the income from which was distributed beneficently. Among various events arising periodically or for special occasions, he promoted the celebration of the Giuseppe Verdi centenary in 1913 by the publication of a volume of scholarly studies on Verdian subjects, and a performance of the Requiem under Edoardo Mascheroni at the Basilica of San Francesco, Siena, with the assistance of Arrigo Boito. On his return to Siena he set about the restoration of the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini, in which the artist and architect Arturo Viligiardi was employed. This work, which came to completion in 1923, included the installation of a rococo-style concert hall, to serve which he established a concert association named "Micat in Vertice" (the family motto: "it shines out from the summit"). In September 1923 King Vittorio Emmanuele III confirmed his hereditary title as Count, and gave consent to the formal unification of his lineage with that of Saracini. In 1926 his marriage, which had sunk into a permanent separation, was formally annulled in the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota.

The Academy

In 1932 his musical projects reached maturity in his foundation of the Accademia Chigiana, a centre of advanced musical education still flourishing in present times. It was for outstanding young pupils, and the instruction was intended to instil confidence and approval in their abilities, to apply the stimulus of positive encouragement, and the enthusiasm associated with the fulfilment of a dream, as the Count himself expressed it. The studies included courses in conducting, composition, piano, organ, violin, cello, and lyric vocalization, and Fernando Germani, Arrigo Serato, Arturo Bonucci, Alfredo Casella, Giulia Varesi Boccabadati and Gemma Bellincioni were among the original instructors. Casella, in particular, had a very lasting friendship with the Count and a most influential connection with the Accademia. In 1936 she took part in the season of "Concerti Tigulliani" (in Ligurian Tigullio) dedicated to Vivaldi, which Pound organized. Having failed to establish a Vivaldi study centre in Venice, in 1938 Rudge founded the Centro di Studi Vivaldiani at the Accademia. music of Vivaldi, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, of Pergolesi, Galuppi and Caldara was edited and performed. In 1941 the Count edited a volume of Notes and documents on the Early Venetian School, for the celebratory week of concerts.

In 1950 there appeared the Count's memoir of the baroque keyboard musician Azzolino Bernardino della Ciaja (1671–1755).

Soloists and ensembles

All through Count Chigi Saracini's life, the Accademia Chigiana (through the "Micat in Vertice" Society) and the Siena "Settimane musicali" hosted the most influential international soloists, among whom the Dizionario Biografico, in a formulation of inclusivity, mentions the pianists Walter Gieseking, Wilhelm Kempff, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Alfred Cortot, the violinists Bronislaw Huberman, Nathan Milstein, Gioconda de Vito and Salvatore Accardo, the cellists Gaspar Cassado, Enrico Mainardi, Pablo Casals and André Navarra, the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, the guitarist Andrès Segovia, and singers Suzanne Danco and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. They were led by the violinist Riccardo Brengola, and the ensemble worked together until Count Chigi's death in 1965, when Brengola (whom the Count appointed director of the chamber music courses in 1946) instead formed the Sestetto d'Archi Chigiano, a string sextet. In 1945 they studied together at Borciani's house in Reggio Emilia, and it was in this formation that the Quartet made its public debut in the same year. Forzanti was later replaced by Piero Farulli.

The desire to discover and promote other gems of early Italian music prompted the Count to establish the Madrigalisti dell'Accademia Chigiana in 1950. of paintings, musical instruments, autographs and rare manuscripts (of Cimarosa, Frescobaldi, Pacini, Spontini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Boito, Gounod), and more than one hundred editions of the 1500s and 1600s of non-operatic vocal music by authors such as Luca Marenzio and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. For his own music, he enjoyed composing to lyrics from the nineteenth-century poets (principally Trilussa and D'Annunzio),

Archive The personal archive of Chigi Saracini was acquired in 1992 by the Accademia Chigiana.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Count Guido's death, an exhibition was held at the Palazzo from October 2015 to June 2016, entitled Ricordanze. Guido Chigi Saracini e le Arti.