IT WAS the ambition of Anthony Galla-Rini to raise the status of the accordion from dance-band accompaniment to concert draw. In so striving, he became one of the leading American exponents of the instrument.
Galla-Rini began his career as a boy prodigy in a stage act, and concluded it more than 90 years later after playing with some 15 symphony orchestras. In 1941, his Concerto for Accordion and Orchestra in G Minor was premiered in Oklahoma, with himself as soloist. He later wrote a second concerto as well as a sonata, and performed widely at concert venues in America, including Carnegie Hall, and in Britain.
He was born in Manchester, Connecticut, in 1904, the third child of seven of musicians from Verona who had emigrated to America when his mother was pregnant with him.
The family settled in San Francisco, but when Galla-Rini was 7 his mother put him on a train to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was performing on the vaudeville circuit. He never returned to school. At 4, he had begun to learn the cornet, and now he studied the accordion. Soon he was appearing on stage with his sisters in the family act, which included him playing Casey Jones while wearing a train driver’s cap.
By the time he was a teenager Galla-Rini could play 12 instruments, but he decided early to concentrate on the accordion, because of the breadth of its sound. He was already determined to have its qualities recognised by classical musicians and, by listening to recordings of Rachmaninov and Schumann, largely taught himself counterpoint and orchestration.
Advertisement
In 1924 he and his father quarrelled over his share of the takings from their shows, and Galla-Rini and his sisters broke away to form their own troupe. The coming of the cinema, however, meant that the days of the theatre circuit were numbered. Galla-Rini opened a teaching studio in San Francisco, and was hired by the Wurlitzer company to give musical instruction at summer camps. In 1938 he co-founded the American Accordionists Association.
Over the next few years Galla-Rini worked with a Latin dance band in California, learning to play rumbas on his instrument. His proximity to Hollywood led to soundtrack work, and he was heard in such films as Otto Preminger’s murder mystery Laura (1944) and High Noon (1952).
Thereafter he continued to teach and to perform, even as a centenarian. Younger generations of players were indebted to his numerous arrangements and various innovations to the playing of the accordion.
Galla-Rini was never happier than when trying to coax the strains of Ol’ Man River from an improvised band of some 40 accordionists at one of the music camps that he ran.
He married first, in 1933, Dina Petromilli, who died in 1968. Three years later he married Dolly Cortella. She died in 2003, aged 101. He is survived by the son of his first marriage.
Advertisement
Anthony Galla-Rini, accordion player, was born on January 18, 1904. He died on July 30, 2006, aged 102.