Alberto Favara (1863-1923), an Italian ethnomusicologist, is one of the pioneers of the scholarly study of Sicilian folk music.[1] He studied at the Palermo Conservatory and later in Milan. In 1895 he became a music professor at the Palermo Conservatory.[citation needed] In 1907 he published Canti della terra e del mare di Sicilia (Songs of the land and sea of Sicily), followed in 1921 by an additional collection of Canti popolari siciliani (Sicilian Folk Songs).[citation needed] Favara was also the composer of miscellaneous vocal works and instrumental pieces for orchestra and chamber groups.[citation needed] The full extent of Favara's groundbreaking work as a collector of Sicilian folk songs was not known until 1957, 34 years after his death, when a complete collection of 1,090 folk songs, transcribed into music notation by Favara, were published in the two volume set Corpus di Musichi Populari Siciliane; a work edited by Ottavio Tiby.[2]
