Francesco Molino (1768-1847)

Molino's Grand Trio Concertant, op. 30, for flute or violin, viola, and guitar, a fine and major work never before published in our own time as far as I know, is now available in Tecla.  Molino's complete trios, that is to say op. 30 and opp. 4 and 45, are now also available directly downloadable online from our sister site Hebe in modern editions, score and parts.

Francesco Molino (1768-1847) was an Italian guitarist and composer who lived for some years in Paris.

He was born at Ivrea near Turin on 4 June 1768. At the age of fifteen, in 1783, he enrolled in the band of the Piedmont Regiment as an oboist, a post which he resigned in 1793.  Also in this period, from 1786 to 1789, he played the viola in the orchestra of the Teatro Regio in Turin. Then from 1814 to 1818 he was employed in the royal chapel in Turin. (We do not yet know where he spent the period between 1793 and 1814.) By 1817 he had published two guitar methods (they are in Whistling's Handbuch for that year). Then in about 1820 he moved to Paris where he was very active as a teacher and composer, until his death there in 1847.  He wrote two violin concertos, of which the second was dedicated to Kreutzer; one guitar concerto, op. 56; many works for guitar with other instruments; and many guitar solos.