Alfredo Campoli
Alfredo Campoli was born in Rome on 20th October 1906. His father Romeo was a violinist who taught at l’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, whilst his mother Elvira Celi was a rising operatic soprano.
Alfredo was an only child who proved to be a talented violinist from an early age. The family moved to London in 1912 and lived near Wandsworth Common. He thus had a very dislocated education in order to develop his precocious musical talent. He made his professional debut as a soloist at Wigmore Hall aged 16 in 1923, having already played for troops wounded in World War 1. He also toured the British Isles as a young man in the company of such famous opera singers as Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Clara Butt.
The Great Depression was a tough time for musicians and so Alfredo went into the world of palm court music and directed the Dorchester Hotel Orchestra playing for diners in their restaurant. However later in the 1930s he also played light music on the BBC Home Service.
He met his future wife Ivy Doreen (Joy) Burbridge in 1937, when she was a secretary in the BBC Light Music Unit. Joy was born in 1912, the only surviving child of her mother Ella Kate whose husband and Joy’s father had been killed in World War 1, whilst a younger brother Stanley died aged 2 in 1917. Joy attended Thame Girls’ Grammar School whilst her mother worked as a bank clerk at Barclays Bank and they lived in Upper High Street, Thame.
Alfredo and Joy were married on 9th May 1942 at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Thame (this was the original church built in Brook Lane in 1922 and replaced by a new church in 1997). They made Winchmore Hill in North London their home for many years.
Alfredo had been classified as an enemy alien at the start of World War 2, but this was soon revoked and he gave concerts for the British Armed Forces (ENSA) to improve wartime morale. He underwent the process of British Naturalisation in 1947.
After the war he resumed his career as a soloist in classical concerts and always strived to give a first-rate performance, practising for 6-7 hours a day when preparing for a concert. He made regular appearances at the BBC Proms between 1945 and 1964, playing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the likes of Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Arthur Bliss and Sir Malcolm Sargent.
Between the 1950s and 1970s he made several international tours, particularly to Australia, New Zealand and the USA, but also to countries such as Russia and India.
He made many recordings of his work, mainly for the Decca label, starting in the 1930s. Perhaps the piece for which he is best known is Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor. (Op.64). He also owned 3 violins made by Stradivarius during his lifetime – the finest being the ‘Dragonetti’ of 1707.
After he had finished performing Alfredo and Joy retired to Thame in 1986 and purchased their home at 39, North Street. He continued playing bridge which had been his other passion since the 1930s, but unfortunately died suddenly of a heart attack when attending a bridge club in Princes Risborough on 27th March 1991.
A requiem mass was held at St Joseph’s church, where the stained glass windows are dedicated to his memory. He is buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s, where his parents and Joy’s mother had previously been laid to rest.
Joy sold the house in North Street in 1995, when she donated Alfredo’s personal violin music and programmes to Cambridge University music library. She died aged 97 in 2010 and was buried with her husband. A year later on 14th April 2011, a commemorative blue plaque was placed on the couple’s final home and unveiled by Mrs Patsy Dudley, a cousin of Joy. There were no children of the marriage.
‘The Bel Canto’ is the title of a biography of Alfredo written by David Turnley and published in 1999.Bel canto means beautiful singing in Italian-chosen as the title because Alfredo was thought to display an Italian singing style of playing, marked by its tenderness, coupled with his dazzling technique and a glowingly distinctive tone.