Introduction
“Canzona a dispietto” (Song of Spite) by Enrico Caruso and Alfredo Sarmiento is one of a four song collection composed in 1911. It tells the story of a romantic relationship gone wrong from the perspective of the hurt lover recounting the volatile relationship. These songs were for the purpose of in-home parlor entertainment. It is the least known of the four, likely due to the serious topic of the piece and non-idiomatic Italian language. “Dreams of Long Ago” is most well-known of the three, with many newspaper ads in the early part of 1912 throughout the United States.1 2 Little is known about whether Caruso intended these to be viewed as a set of cohesive songs or if they were merely published by Leo Feist as Famous Songs by Enrico Caruso: The World’s Greatest Tenor. In our research and transcription process, we used both the 1912 Leo Feist edition and a non-signed handwritten score.
About Caruso, Missiano, and Sarmiento
In 1911-1912, Enrico Caruso was a singer at the height of his career. After making his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1903 in Rigoletto, his American career took off. 3 He was in demand as an operatic tenor, a recitalist, and as an actor.
Around this time, Caruso also experienced a personal tragedy with the death of his friend Eduardo Missiano. It had been Missiano who had originally found the young Caruso in Naples and who had brought Caruso to his teacher. Many years later, a successful and renowned Caruso helped Missiano win a job singing lesser parts for the Metropolitan Opera Company.4
In the handwritten manuscript, Missiano is credited as the lyricist. Additionally, Alfredo Sarmiento is credited as a co-composer along with Caruso. While little is known about Sarmiento apart from his connection to Caruso, their collaborative relationship was an important aspect to both of their careers. Sarmiento was a conductor who worked with Caruso in Egypt early in his career. Sarmiento later became Caruso’s accompanist, so it is likely that he made contributions to the piano accompaniment of the song. 5
Though this is an Italian inspired parlor song, it is more closely aligned in performance practice to American popular music of the early 20th century. 6 It is in strophic form, a common form of American parlor and popular music throughout history. 7 The publication format follows the piano-vocal single sheet music format popularized in the early-mid 19th century by the eruption of piano manufacturing.8 The relatively limited vocal range (an 11th) and simple piano part seems to indicate that is was created for popular, amateur musicians in mind rather than the professional musician.6 We are fortunate to have recordings of Caruso singing various genres of music such as opera, art song, and popular song. He tends towards a voluptuous, Romantic “bel canto” style of singing. It is reasonable to assume that this is the vocal quality Caruso envisioned when composing “Canzona a Dispietto”.
