Giuseppe Manente 1867 – 1941

Musician, excellent composer, founder and first conductor of the Guardia di Finanza Band, he was one of the main and appreciated transcribers and orchestrators of Ricordi’s house.

A native of Morcone, he considered Guglionesi in Molise, his village of adoption because he had arrived there very young afterhis father, Maestro Liborio, was appointed director of the village band. Young Giuseppe played his first notes in Guglionesi, in Piazza Grande, under his father’s guidance. He studied trumpet and composition at the Conservatory in Naples, carried on with his studies at the Conservatory of Madrid and finally  at the Liceo di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

In 1918 he was appointed inspector of the musical bodies mobilized by the Ministry of War,. With this band he went to New York, Paris, London and Brussels. Once he was discharged he was chosen by the Italian Government to organize and conduct the the band of King Faruk of Egypt. Back in Italy he founded and directed the Guardia di Finanza Band of Rome. He was director of the musical house Lapini in Florence. Very appreciated, by the same master Leoncavallo who was  attending the performance, was histranscription of the work Pagliacci, performed with the band of the 83rd Infantry.

Among the numerous prizes he won the gold medal for a composition for band organized by the Verdi Music Institute of Turin. Some of his compositions for mandolin have recently been recorded in Japan where he is well known, his marches are still played in Trapani during the procession of the Mysteries.

Over 800 band compositions, military, symphonic, funeral and religious marches, he was composer of opera and operetta, author of chamber music and mandolin and of hundreds of compositions for plectrum and plucked instrument formations.

He rests with his wife in the cemetery of Guglionesi, a town that dedicated a street to him.