Home > Amilcare Ponchielli

Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, Ponchielli studied music at the Milan Conservatoire, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old. Two years after leaving the conservatoire he wrote his first opera, I promessi sposi, and it was as an opera composer that he found fame. His best known opera, La Gioconda , was produced in 1876. He died in Milan.

Although Ponchielli was very popular and influential in his lifetime, the only one of his operas regularly performed today is La Gioconda. It contains "The Dance of the Hours", which has become a well known piece in its own right, largely thanks to its use in Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia, the 1963 Allan ShermanAllan Sherman (also Alan , November 30, 1924 November 20, 1973, was an American song parodist, satirist, singer, and TV producer. As a TV producer (he produced game shows such as "I've Got a Secret") in the early 1960s, Sherman found that the little song novelty song, "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" and, to a lesser degree, the 1966 Perrey and KingsleyThe musical duo Perrey and Kingsley Jean-Jacques Perrey b. 1923 and Gershon Kingsley b. 1929), were pioneers in the field of electronic music. Prior to their collaboration in 1964, electronic music was considered to be purely avant-garde. The notion of el song, "Countdown To 6."