Description
Besides being an engineer, a mathematician and a professor of geography, Luigi Hugues was also a flutist, a composer and an esteemed exponent of the nineteenth-century musical genre called Salon Musik. Born in 1836, he started and pursued his musical education together with his brother Felice. Both studied the flute and accompaniment piano; Luigi also proceeded with the study of composition. As we have already pointed out, music was not his only interest. He was also an eminent professor of geography and a scholar in that field. In 1859 he was a teacher at the Istituto Tecnico "Lerdi" of Casale Monferrato, and from 1875 onwards he was appointed professor of geography at the Regia Universita of Turin. At the same time, in the years between 1863 and 1875 he was director of the Civica Scuola di Musica, a member of the board of directors of the Teatro Municipale, the conductor of the Corpo di Musica della Guardia Nazionale of Casale Monferrato, the organiser of the concerts of the Accademia Filarmonica of Casale Monferrato, and an organist first in the Chiesa di Santo Stefano of Casale, then in the Duomo of that city. Hugues, as previously stated, composed works of the Salon Musik genre: pieces that were suitable for everyday use and could be appreciated by a vast public, but at the same time were unmistakably characterised by didactic features. A careful analysis of his music, moreover, reveals a conscious, intentional use of the virtuosic style that was in vogue in the nineteenth century and was greatly loved by the public of concert halls: this feature is particularly noticeable in all the variations on operatic themes written for one or two flutes and piano accompaniment.
