Don Rico & His Gypsy Girls Orchestra Italian Theatre Hand Signed Photo

pfas179    Antique circa 1910 real photo postcard for Don Rico & His Famous Gypsy Girls historic theatre act of 115 years ago personally autographed by Don Rico where his signature rests perfectly accompanying his portrait in mint condition and undedicated too.

Don Rico is the son of musical and theatrical parents, for his mother was a ballerina in Milan, and his father conductor of an orchestra there.  It is not surprising that the child of this union was trying to conduct almost as soon as he could walk.  He spent his childhood in Hungary, and it was there that he first learnt to love and understand the gipsy music.

He was sent, still young, to the Paris Conservatoire, and there he learnt to master the cello.  At the age of 10 he was commanded to appear at the Imperial Palace by the Czar of Russia.

It was about this time that he had already embarked upon composition, and some of the pieces he then wrote are now in the bands repertoire. 

Only a keen and sympathetic musical mind can hope to catch the spirit of the strange Hungarian music, with its wildness suddenly changing to deep melancholy breathing all the while the spirit of the nomad Tzigane life.  Those who hear Don Rico at the Springfield Theatre, Jersey, must immediately realise how deeply he has caught that elusive spirit.

Not for nothing does Don Rico style himself The Worlds Greatest Showman!