Aldo Ferraresi was born in the historic centre of Ferrara on May 14, 1902 at 21 Via Vittoria. His father Augusto, an artillery marshal and passionate mandolin player, and his mother Marcella Jesi, having noticed their child’s gift for music, sent him to the Frescobaldi Institute of Music of Ferrara at the age of five to study with the masters Federico Barera and Umberto Supino.

At the age of twelve, having succeeded in an audition for admission, Ferraresi was accepted to the Conservatory of Parma under the guidance of Mario Corti, who later accompanied him to Rome to the Academy of Saint Cecilia, where he received a violin degree with top marks at fifteen years old.

He started his concert career at the Music High School of Bologna, and at the City and Verdi Theatres of Ferrara: a career of an "enfant prodige" with a bold and informal spirit, characteristic of his whole life. In Ferrara, while still very young, Ferraresi performed at the Apollo Cinema, in the orchestra of the silent cinema, and in the café concerts of Viareggio and Florence ("Orchestra Ferraresi-Cortopassi"). His life was almost parallel to that of the great Vasa Prihoda (who too was discovered by Toscanini at the café Grand’Italia in the Gallery of Milan!). Only poets who have truly suffered are capable of creating real poetry. And it was Vasa Prihoda, together with Jan Kubelik, who prompted Ferraresi to go to Brussels to the school of the famous violinist Eugène Ysaye, who later considered him to be the best of all his students. He availed himself of Ysaye’s instruction and often in his concerts presented music of the great maestro (e.g. Poème élégiaque, Divertimento, Chant d’hiver).

His concert career as a soloist started with some brilliant debuts. Already, the first reviews had revealed that "Aldo Ferraresi’s technique is such that he even offers tips to some concert performers who are considered virtuosos of class by critics and by themselves" (Gaianus in "L’Avvenire d’Italia"); "Although a fifteen-year-old, he is already a perfect violinist, a first-rate connoisseur of the technique of his instrument. Moreover, he possesses a very sensitive musical temperament that allows him to interpret in an exceptional way even the most difficult composers" (Bastianelli in "Il Resto del Carlino", 1918). Bold technique, sentimental audacity, and attachment to the family were the guiding points of Aldo Ferraresi’s life.

Nazism and war weighed heavily on the Ferraresi family especially because of the fact that the mother was of Jewish origin. However, the storm passed.

From the Theatre of the Scala in Milan to the Royal Festival Hall in London, Ferraresi performed around the world. He gave concerts in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Portugal, Yugoslavia, and the United States, where he was invited to celebrate the anniversary of the foundation of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He always performed under the most famous directors: Scherchen, Knappertsbusch, Munch, Barbirolli, Rodzinski, Celibidache, Klecky, Kurz, Cluytens, Poulet, Erede, Rossi, Zecchi, and many others.

After the Second World War, in 1948, Ferraresi returned to the spotlight by performing at the Theatre of the Scala in Milan. As he performed the incredibly difficult concerto for violin and orchestra by Mario Guarino, under the direction of André Cluytens, the audience watched his steel fingers unfold like silk tissue.

There were two very memorable concerts of Aldo Ferraresi. The first in Genoa in 1950 for the five hundred year anniversary celebration of the birth of Christopher Columbus, where he performed Paganini’s Concerto in D major on the Guarnieri "Cannone" violin. The second was in 1965 when Ferraresi gave a concert at the Vatican, in the Hall of Benedictions, in the presence of Pope Paul VI (to whom he had given violin lessons years before) and his Papal Court, where he played Jean Sibelius’ Solemn Melodies Op. 77. No less important, however, was the concert of 1950 in San Remo in the presence of Prince Philip of Edinburgh, when he had to encore with the Paganini Concerto in D major. Paganini didn’t take the repeats but Ferraresi did!

In 1963, he performed the Aram Katchaturian concerto for violin and orchestra televised by the RAI Italian television station, under the direction of the composer himself.

Still, however, Ferraresi never neglected chamber music which he instead held in great esteem. He was first violin in the Quartet of San Remo and the Symphonic Orchestra of San Remo, as well as concertmaster at the San Carlo Theatre of Naples.

Among the pianists who accompanied him, we will always remember Antonio Beltrami, Riccardo Castagnone, Ernesto Galdieri, and his own son Augusto Ferraresi.

When Efrem Zimbalist died, the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia called on Ferraresi to direct the violin department, but Aldo Ferraresi preferred to stay in Italy with his family. "Où peut-on etre mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?" as the composers André Grétry and Vieuxtemps would have said (leitmotiv of the Adagio of the Vieuxtemps Concerto no.5)

A rear-admiral was asked by the royal British yacht anchored in San Remo to bring Ferraresi on board as guest after his triumphal concert. He thanked her but declined the offer saying, "I’m too tired." He then went into downtown San Remo to enjoy a nice ice-cream.

Simplicity was his way of life and he never renounced, not even as a celebrity.

Ferraresi played on many precious violins: the Stradivarius "King George" and the Guarnieri of Paganini, for example. Yet his favourite instruments were a Camillo Camilli and an Alessandro Gagliano, two violins he often used in his live recordings. When RCA records asked him to make a recording of the Paganini Capricci, he accepted the invitation on the condition that they leave his mistakes in the recording.

Gianluca La Villa