Attilio de Vitalis
- Blue Pumpkin
- Jan 3
- 1 min read
Updated: Mar 16
A name you don't hear in Jorge's usual biography! Jorge had begun piano lessons with sister Maria. (He said in an interview in 1943 that he was seven years old at the time.). At age four, he had been attacking the piano keys so enthusiastically that one day he literally broke a hammer. 'After that he was consigned to an imaginary keyboard—specifically, the living room sofa—and his cherished pastime was banging out scales and octaves on a slab of overstuffed mohair, supplying whatever sound effects he could with his squeaky little boy soprano voice.' (James Lyons, Musical America, December 1954)
Maria soon entrusted Jorge - aged 10 - to Attilio M. de Vitalís but he died within a few months on 16 December 1925 in his sixty-ninth year. Professor de Vitalis was survived by his wife, four sons and three daughters. (Diario de la Marina 20.6.1929; Musical America, 26.12.1925) Attilio de Vitalis had advertised lessons November to May 1923/4 when he was residing in Lens Court, Calle 6, Vedado, Havana; he seems to have been previously based at the Morristown School, New Jersey and in New York, where he was Secretary and treasurer of the Composers' Music Corporation, 14 East 48th Street NYC in 1919. Born in Russia c.1856? (Diario 25.11.1923 etc.)