The Maltese composer Charles Camilleri : his life and musical style

Abstract

I must start by saying that giving a short speech about Charles Camilleri (1931-2009), the Maltese composer of international repute, is no easy task. Camilleri's life and works have been written about quite extensively by both foreign and local music scholars and commentators. Amongst these, one may mention the works of Christopher Palmer (1975), Jeremy Walbank (1987), Ates Orga (1987), Guy Protheroe (1992), and Basil Ramsey (1996), and, more locally, the writings of Joseph Vella Bondin (2001), and my University colleagues John Galea (2001), Albert Pace (2002), and Hans-Jiirgen Nagel (2007). All these writings draw a picture of the thriving life of this great composer, one who succeeded in being local as much as cosmopolitan, who classicized the popular, who fused the musical east with the west, and who wandered quite at ease between the academic and the artistic. Above all, they portray a man described by the late Rev Prof Peter Serracino Inglott in the composer's funeral address as of great commitment, one who sacrificed much for the art that he loved so intensely. My aim here is to present some of the highlights in the life of Camilleri followed by personal reflections about the composer's persona that emerge out of his musical style