Richard Barthélemy was an Italian composer and a longtime piano accompanist for well-known opera singer and tenor Enrico Caruso. His parents were French and Italian but lived in Greece, and Barthélemy sometimes claimed to be Jewish. He studied in San Pietro a Majella conservatory in Naples, and he lived in Paris from 1898. As an accompanist of Caruso, he went with him frequently to play concerts in the United States, initially as an Italian, but later as a French citizen. A manuscript by Barthélemy about Caruso was not published until 1979. Still in Paris, he worked as a singing teacher. In 1925 he became the pianist of Louis II, Prince of Monaco, and musical teacher of his children with a residence in the palace. In 1938, he moved to Monte Carlo permanently. His compositions included songs and stage works.
Barthélemy won the 1912 Olympic music gold medal for his Olympic Triumph March. His composition bears the French original title “Marche Hymne” and is dedicated to “His Majesty the King of Sweden”. It also bears the remark “made for the occasion of the Olympic Festival of 1912”. The piano score comprises 116 bars and consists of eight parts of different length. The hand-written original manuscript is archived in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.
Italy