Riccardo Brengola (18 March 1917 – 16 May 2004) was an Italian violinist and professor. He was associated with early Italian chamber music and with the performance of contemporary Italian classical music. For several decades, he was the Professor Emeritus of chamber music at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, and from 1939 to 1966, he was the leader of the only piano quintet ensemble, the Quintetto Chigiano. His influence as a teacher also spread beyond Siena, through courses or classes at other major Italian Conservatories and to Ireland, Argentina, Spain and Japan. He maintained his career as a concert violin soloist and as an orchestral conductor, and was awarded the status of Commendatore of the Italian Republic in 1982. Early life Riccardo Brengola was born in Naples on 18 March 1917, the son of Carlo Brengola and Maria Esposito. His father was a cellist, who had a passion for making stringed instruments, but the extremely harsh economic conditions in the immediate post-war period caused the family to emigrate to Casablanca, Morocco in 1919. Carlo Brengola opened a music shop which sold instruments, sheet music and albums. When Riccardo turned three, his father decided to make him a violinist, making him his first instrument and teaching him. Child Riccardo Brengola performed Arabian music in public. Musical education At the age of six he was enrolled in the Casablanca Music Conservatory, where he was taught by Lucien Salin, a graduate of the Lucien Capet school. Riccardo also attended a Spanish primary school where he learned his fourth language: at this point he spoke Spanish, French, Arabic, and the Neapolitan dialect. He did not speak Italian. At eleven, he graduated from the Conservatory, and in 1929, Mussolini offered him a bursary in Italy, which allowed him to move to Rome where he joined the classes of . A few years later, he graduated from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. Early career Brengola took part in competitions and won prizes and titles, amongst them the Taormina, and also the Accademia Chigiana Prize for improvement. In 1937, he was the only Italian among the winners of the Eugene Ysaye First International Congress in Brussels (the Queen Elisabeth Competition). In 1946, he won the Geneva International Music Competition. In 1938, he met the pianist Giuliana Bordoni in Siena, a student in Alfredo Casella's class