The 2017 edition of the Reate Festival of Italy staged two operas composed by Nino Rota (1911-1979). Mostly known for his cinema soundtracks, Rota was able to merge the great Italian operatic tradition of Rossini, Puccini and Verdi into a contemporary musical language. I due timidi is drawn from a text of Italian writer Suso Cecchi d’Amico and the libretto of La notte di un nevrastenico was written by Riccardo Bacchelli. An all-star cast is featured here, including Giorgio Celenza, Sabrina Cortese, Daniele Adriani, Antonio Sapio, Chiara Osella, and Carlo Feola, among others. The Reate Festival Orchestra, led by Gabriele Bonolis, accompanies the soloists perfectly. This release is the world premiere recording of these works, and has been filmed in high-definition. Subtitled are available in Italian, English, German, French, Japanese, and Korean.
-----
REVIEW:
I due timidi is a gorgeous piece. Rota doesn't quite muster Puccini’s final layer of harmonic interest and novel orchestration but he rivals his senior for melodic generosity and is brilliant with vocal characterisation and linguistic clarity.
The performances are simply staged with a touch of commedia dell’arte and allowed to blossom in all the right ways by the conductor Gabriele Bonolis. There’s some ragged orchestral work but lovely singing that indulges Rota’s irresistible legatos. Daniele Adriani stands out as the male lover Raimondo in I due and as the Commendatore in La notte. His is not a classic Italian tenor sound, rather something with more grain but still adequate smoothness and notable presence.
– Gramophone
On Sale
Rota: La notte di un nevrastenico & I due timidi / Bonolis, Reate Festival Orchestra
$36.99
$27.99
DVD
Dynamic
Jan 11, 2019
DYN-37830
O-Celli fait son cinema
Cyprés Records
Available as
CD
$20.99
Oct 18, 2024
Exploring the classical repertoire from Bach to Nino Rota, but also venturing into lands less usually frequented by the cello, O-Celli transcends the boundaries between classical music and cinema for it's third opus at Cypres. Each theme, each melody tells a story, creating an immersive experience that celebrates the very essence of the seventh art. O-Celli fait son cinema is much more than just a concert, it's a musical journey that will take listeners back to some of their greatest cinematic emotions.
O-Celli fait son cinema
$20.99
CD
Cyprés Records
Oct 18, 2024
CYP0623
Cinema per Archi
Arcana
Available as
CD
$20.99
Jan 05, 2018
Oscar™ Cinema' might be a suitable alternative title for the new album with which the strings of the Santa Cecilia Academy under the direction of Luigi Piovano - principal cellist of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and much admired conductor - begin their collaboration with Arcana, after two recordings for Eloquentia released in 2014 and 2015. Yes, it's true, the three Italian composers represented here - Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone and Nicola Piovani - all won the highest honours at the American Oscar™ ceremony. But this CD goes further. Alongside some of their most famous movie themes - from La strada to The Mission, from Life is beautiful to Amarcord - it also includes works written by these three screen giants for performance in concert. Although they concentrated their work on the cinema, Rota, Morricone and Piovani were still composers above all else, and their activity did not exclude an independent and committed creative dimension. Some of the pieces featured on this disc were composed or arranged for the Archi di Santa Cecilia and Luigi Piovano and are dedicated to them.
Cinema per Archi
$20.99
CD
Arcana
Jan 05, 2018
A440
Parole in Musica - Music for Guitar Trio
Naxos
Available as
CD
$19.99
$13.99
May 23, 2025
This diverse programme of works for guitar trio is bound by the common thread of music inspired by stories from literature, stage or screen. With it's rhythmic exuberance and tragic beauty, Bernstein's West Side Story has never lost it's freshness and relevance. Ensemble member Luca Isolani's Note fuori campo is a homage to the versatile Italian composer Nino Rota, who, like Manos Hadjidakis, first shot to international fame with an Oscar-winning film score. Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye evokes the poetry of childhood with a refined expressiveness that makes it as popular and unforgettable as Grieg's music for Peer Gynt.
On Sale
Parole in Musica - Music for Guitar Trio
$19.99
$13.99
CD
Naxos
May 23, 2025
8579172
Serenades & Sonatas for Flute & Harp / Shulman, Goodman
Naxos
Available as
CD
$19.99
Oct 12, 2018
This programme has been nurtured from a selection of pieces inspired by English gardens, including Vaughan Williams’ lovely ‘Fantasia on Greensleeves,’ spreading out towards French and Italian repertoire that evokes pastoral settings of birdsong, fountains and springs, and topped with a light-hearted musical picnic dessert. Along the way we are treated to the exquisite melody of Elgar’s Chanson de matin and the nostalgic atmosphere of William Alwyn’s ‘Naiades.’ Nino Rota’s film music credits include The Godfather, and his sublime and festive Sonata adds a celebratory touch to the personal joy of these performers’ many years of musical friendship. The combination of flute and harp always creates an atmosphere of beauty, with contrasting but complementary sonorities that have been exploited by a multitude of composers over the years. The pastoral theme of this program has been carefully chosen to include music from the Baroque and Romantic eras right up to the contemporary.
Serenades & Sonatas for Flute & Harp / Shulman, Goodman
$19.99
CD
Naxos
Oct 12, 2018
8573947
D'Amario: Complete Works for Guitar Solo & Two Guitars
Brilliant Classics
Available as
CD
$14.99
Apr 18, 2025
- Coming from a family of musicians, guitarist and composer Bruno Battisti D'Amario (Rome, 1937) received his artistic training at the Conservatorio Musicale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he studied under Maestros Benedetto Di Ponio and Mario Gangi. - In 1960, he met Ennio Morricone, who involved him in many collaborations as lead guitarist (classical and electric) in the soundtracks of his films. He also took composition lessons from him, thus creating a solid working relationship that lasted more than 20 years. He has collaborated with composers such as Nino Rota, Armando Trovajoli, Luis Bacalov, Nicola Piovani and others. - D'Amario knows the guitar perfectly, exploring all it's timbres and colours, creating fantastic soundscapes, sophisticated harmonies and flowing melodies. - Guitarist Adriano Sebastiani is a pupil and now close friend of D'Ammario, his playing shows deep knowledge and close affection for the idiom of this wonderfully original music. Riccardo Bini joins him in the works for guitar duo.
D'Amario: Complete Works for Guitar Solo & Two Guitars
$14.99
CD
Brilliant Classics
Apr 18, 2025
BRI96951
CINEMA
ERATO
Available as
CD
$18.56
Jul 28, 2023
Alexandre Tharaud's relationship with film music runs deep - it also ranges wide. On his double album CINEMA, the French pianist delves into 50 celebrated film scores by composers from France, Italy, the USA, Japan, Poland, Romania and Lebanon - 19 in all. Among them are Michel Legrand, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Francis Lai, Marvin Hamlisch, Nino Rota and Philip Glass. As Tharaud says: "This album pays tribute to them with a selection of pieces for piano and orchestra and for piano solo, most in their original versions, creating a sound-world every bit as thrilling without the motion picture." The movie magic is reinforced by Tharaud's starry partners on the album: Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and making guest appearances are singers Vanessa Paradis, Camelia Jordana and Sabine Devieilhe, clarinettist Michel Portal and vioinist Nemanja Radulovic.
CINEMA
$18.56
CD
ERATO
Jul 28, 2023
EAO718461.2
Rota: La notte di un nevrastenico & I due timidi / Bonolis, Reate Festival Orchestra [Blu-ray]
Dynamic
Available as
Blu-Ray
$36.99
$27.99
Jan 11, 2019
This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.
The 2017 edition of the Reate Festival of Italy staged two operas composed by Nino Rota (1911-1979). Mostly known for his cinema soundtracks, Rota was able to merge the great Italian operatic tradition of Rossini, Puccini and Verdi into a contemporary musical language. I due timidi is drawn from a text of Italian writer Suso Cecchi d’Amico and the libretto of La notte di un nevrastenico was written by Riccardo Bacchelli. An all-star cast is featured here, including Giorgio Celenza, Sabrina Cortese, Daniele Adriani, Antonio Sapio, Chiara Osella, and Carlo Feola, among others. The Reate Festival Orchestra, led by Gabriele Bonolis, accompanies the soloists perfectly. This release is the world premiere recording of these works, and has been filmed in high-definition. Subtitled are available in Italian, English, German, French, Japanese, and Korean.
-----
REVIEW:
I due timidi is a gorgeous piece. Rota doesn't quite muster Puccini’s final layer of harmonic interest and novel orchestration but he rivals his senior for melodic generosity and is brilliant with vocal characterisation and linguistic clarity.
The performances are simply staged with a touch of commedia dell’arte and allowed to blossom in all the right ways by the conductor Gabriele Bonolis. There’s some ragged orchestral work but lovely singing that indulges Rota’s irresistible legatos. Daniele Adriani stands out as the male lover Raimondo in I due and as the Commendatore in La notte. His is not a classic Italian tenor sound, rather something with more grain but still adequate smoothness and notable presence.
– Gramophone
On Sale
Rota: La notte di un nevrastenico & I due timidi / Bonolis, Reate Festival Orchestra [Blu-ray]
$36.99
$27.99
Blu-Ray
Dynamic
Jan 11, 2019
DYN-57830
Rota: Works for Harp / Anneleen Lenaerts
WARNER CLASSICS
Available as
CD
$17.28
Jul 31, 2020
As Anneleen Lenaerts proves, Nino Rota brought the same gifts to his music for harp as he did to such unforgettable film scores as 'The Godfather', 'La Dolce Vita' and 'Romeo and Juliet'.
Rota: Works for Harp / Anneleen Lenaerts
$17.28
CD
WARNER CLASSICS
Jul 31, 2020
WCL551471.2
EL NOUR
WARNER CLASSICS
Available as
Vinyl
$27.99
Nov 05, 2021
Writing Goplana, Wladyslaw Zelenski drew upon a national poet's masterpiece by design and took inspiration from a work so important for Polish culture, a story that by then was almost archetypal in tradition, as inspiration. 5906395034550 NIFC8DVD 41970751 15.99 24.95 .50 NIFCCD DIGITAL VIDEO DISC CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 11/05/2021 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/79/4002879-2739149.jpg 0 1 N
L'ARPEGGIATA / PLUHAR,CHRISTINA ALLA NAPOLETANA Christina Pluhar, L'Arpeggiata and eight guest singers explore the musical highways and byways of Naples, the most intoxicating and idiosyncratic of Italy's large cities. Alla Napoletana, a double album, expresses the city's mercurial personality in music from the 17th to the 20th centuries, embracing the operatic style of the so-called Neapolitan School, which rose to prominence in the late 1700s, and popular songs and dances. Among them are several examples of the tarantella, the lively, sometimes frenzied dance that epitomizes southern Italy. 190296603617 EAO660361.2 41972885 12.80 18.98 .53 ERATO COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 11/26/2021 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/95/4003195-2739803.jpg 11 2 N
DANISH NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MURDER AT THE SYMPHONY A dangerous concert experience with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Murder at the Symphony is next in line in their conceptual series, with another exciting concert full of mystery, thrill and popular film music. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra manages to merge the boundaries between classical music and film music like hardly any other orchestra. Discover soundtracks from blood dripping movies and TV series such as Psycho, Vertigo, The Silence of the Lambs, Twin Peaks and Babylon Berlin. It includes an extraordinary interpretation of the hit single Where the Wild Roses Grow, the most successful single release by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds feat. Kylie Minogue. It also features the theme song Open Spaces from movie drama There will be Blood scored by Radiohead's lead guitarist and keyboardist Johnny Greenwood. The concert includes soundtracks from hit composers such as Leonard Cohen, Hans Zimmer, Bernard Herrmann and Nino Rota. 880242652072 ERAR265207.2 41972953 12.90 18.98 .20 EUROARTS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 10/15/2021 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/03/4003203-2738437.jpg 24 1 N
SAID,FATMA EL NOUR The young Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, praised for the luminosity and rich colours of her voice, makes her recording debut for Warner Classics with El Nour. Her enticing and absorbing recital programme crosses cultures, combining art songs by French, Spanish and Egyptian composers with Egyptian folk songs and popular songs from the Middle East. As she explains, 'El Nour' in Arabic means 'Light', and this album sheds light on how music that has been interpreted many times can be perceived in a different light. The idea is to connect three cultures - Arabic, French and Spanish - and to show how much, despite cultural, geographical and historical differences, they have in common when it comes to music".
It is tempting to think of Nathaniel Shilkret?s Trombone Concerto as Rhapsody in Blue light, as there are many similarities, and the Swedish composer openly expressed his debt to Gershwin. According to the liner notes, it was, in fact, Shilkret himself who conducted the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, after Paul Whitman, who usually gets the credit, could not agree on tempos with the composer. But the works are not really kissing cousins. Shilkret?s opening movement owes more to central European light dance music than to American jazz, sounding as if it would be right at home at a Viennese pops concert, or even as a Hollywood soundtrack from the 30s (most of which were written by central European émigrés). The next two movements are filled with blue notes and syncopation, conjuring the jaunty swagger of An American in Paris more so than the Rhapsody. The Concerto was first performed, in 1945, under the combined direction of Tommy Dorsey and Leopold Stokowski, who commissioned the work. Lindberg?s performance sounds spot-on, casually virtuosic, with wonderful expressivity and tonal luster.
This CD is worth acquiring for the Shilkret alone, which is a good thing, since the rest of the program is, well, a bit weird. Please notice I didn?t say bad; this is a matter of taste. My colleague William Zagorski enjoyed an earlier BIS recording of Lindberg?s Helikon Wasp, among other pieces, seeming to enjoy the iconoclastic bent of the composer, for whom ?arid musicological debate is excoriated.? Indeed.
The contemporary Swedish composer Fredrik Högberg gives us the campy concerto subtitled ?The Return of Kit Bones,? with English dialogue, supposedly inspired by Spaghetti westerns, but with heavy doses of schlocky Broadway musical mannerisms as well. Sensitive listeners should be prepared for the occasional scatology. Charming and rather goofy stuff this, and, musically, as light as a feather.
Trombone fanciers will surely want to hear the fabulous playing of Christian Lindberg showcased on this CD, and the Shilkret Concerto is a veritable revelation. Suggestion for a future release; the Shilkret along with the equally neglected and completely delightful Trombone Concerto of Nino Rota.
Who was Mario Pilati? A significant if shortlived (1903-38) figure in Italian instrumental music during the 1920s and 1930s: a gifted conductor, fluent pianist, practical teacher, essayist and perspicacious observer of the musical life of his times. His own music is celebrated here, and anyone who takes pleasure in Romantic chamber music, the neoclassical idiom of Stravinsky, or the vigorous yet always lyric idiom of Respighi and Casella, will find much to enjoy here. In fact Pilati’s music for piano and for orchestra has received some attention on record; much less so his chamber works, making this new 2CD set an important addition to Brilliant Classics’ unrivalled catalogue of Italian music from 1850-1950. The troubled expression of the three- movement, half-hour sonatas for violin and cello (1928) reflects the temper of their times, whereas the Preludio, Aria & Tarantella on Old Neapolitan Folk Tunes for violin and piano apparently turn away from intense battles between tension and reconciliation with the kind of light touch and folk-inspired humour that may be found in the best early works by Casella. There are several miniatures from the 1920s which attest to Pilati’s elegance and sophistication early in his career, as well as to the excellence of his training in his native Naples (though he moved to Milan at 22 and made his career there). Despite its name, Inquietude is a flowing study for piano, reminiscent of Debussy. The set is completed by his two volumes of Bagatelles for solo piano, which frequently draw on Neapolitan themes: 11 relaxed and convivial pieces in all, of an easy charm that would not disgrace Pilati’s friend Nino Rota, and written in an accessible style which may reflect their dedication to the composer’s three daughters. The album is comprehensively documented with valuable notes on both the composer and his work by the pianist Dario Candela: a student of Aldo Ciccolini, who described his pupil as ‘an excellent pianist of great class’. He is joined here by Francesco Manara – a former leader of the orchestra at La Scala, Milan – and the cellist Luca Signorini who, like Pilati, pursues a diverse career as a performing musician, conductor and writer.
On Sale
Pilati: Chamber Music For Violin, Cello And Piano
$21.99
$16.99
CD
Brilliant Classics
Sep 22, 2017
BRI95352
DOLCE VITA / O.S.T.
DECCA
Available as
CD
$15.94
Oct 28, 2022
La Dolce Vita (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) - Nino Rota's soundtrack to Federico Fellini's masterpiece 'La Dolce Vita' has been fully restored and remastered from the original master tapes and will be released on CAM Sugar as part of the CAM SUGAR Heritage Series - the label's collection dedicated to the scores synonymous with the history of Italian cinema.
DOLCE VITA / O.S.T.
$15.94
CD
DECCA
Oct 28, 2022
DCA923152.2
The Film Music Of Ron Goodwin / Gamba, BBC Philharmonic
Chandos
Available as
CD
$21.99
Nov 01, 2004
Now that Chandos, in its extensive and irreplaceable film music series, has dealt with composers from Vaughan Williams to Nino Rota who first made their reputations in the classical concert field, with Ron Goodwin (1925–2003), they pay tribute to a musician who, in the early 1950s, quickly emerged from the pop music world with such fetching instrumental novelties as Swingin’ Sweethearts (known as Lingering Lovers in England) and similar cute numbers that became briefly ubiquitous on both sides of the Atlantic. (Incidentally Chandos should have provided some background commentary on Goodwin’s evolution in the accompanying booklet.)
This program offers a wide-ranging cross section of Goodwin’s work on several successful films as well as a few obscure but very appealing themes from minor films. Opening with the main theme to a 1963 war adventure—633 Squadron—we recognize Goodwin’s knack for taking very simple motifs of a generically fanfare-like or tocsin-like nature—sometimes celebratory, at others minatory—and turning them into striking variants that stick firmly in the memory. The main theme from the top-drawer World War II thriller—Where Eagles Dare—is another excellent example of this exceptional skill of creating an imposing charge of tension and foreboding through a monothematic manipulation of a basic percussion-lanced idea. Operation Crossbow and Force Ten from Navarone also fall into this category.
But Goodwin had another puckish side to his chameleon-like personality: an ability to throw together a mélange of thematic snippets drawn from all kinds of easily recognizable and pigeonholed ethnic and nationalistic sources—as in the rollicking roundelays from Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and Monte Carlo or Bust. The Miss Marple theme exemplifies Goodwin’s ability to establish and enhance a uniquely quirky character in just a few measures similar to the late John Addison’s inimitable theme for Murder She Wrote. Some of Goodwin’s themes have such unusual appeal that they can be adapted to other collective uses, as in the case of the main theme from The Trap, a lesser film noir, which later became known as “The London Marathon Theme.” Goodwin’s facility with more lyrically romantic material is evident in Lancelot and Guinevere, Of Human Bondage, and Beauty and the Beast, while a suite from Clash of Loyalties exploits more-exotic terrain quite colorfully.
Finally, we have here for the first time anywhere some lovely and sensually expressive melodies, such as the main themes from Deadly Stranger, Whirlpool, and Submarine X-1. About the only examples here that come across as somewhat derivatively generic are the London Theme from Hitchcock’s Frenzy and the suite from Battle of Britain, for which the too-slow-writing William Walton was preparing a truly exciting score but was replaced at the last minute by the more facile Goodwin.
This inherently positive, cheerful, and good-humored music reflects the beloved Goodwin’s own personality and is given a rousing and thrilling send-off by Rumon Gamba and the BBC Philharmonic. A real treat for all lovers of “light.”
Paul A. Snook, FANFARE
The Film Music Of Ron Goodwin / Gamba, BBC Philharmonic
$21.99
CD
Chandos
Nov 01, 2004
CHAN 10262
IL CASANOVA DI FEDERICO FELLINI
DECCA
Available as
CD
$16.60
Mar 17, 2023
The original soundtrack for Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976) sees Nino Rota putting into music Federico Fellini's opus on the legendary Venetian icon and "tombeur des femmes." The film is one of Fellini's finest, a grotesque and hyperbolic take on the life of Casanova that is matched by Rota's compositions. Il Casanova di Federico Fellini is possibly one of Rota's most eerie and enigmatic scores, as if the Maestro had finally poured into a soundtrack all of his love for esotericism.
IL CASANOVA DI FEDERICO FELLINI
$16.60
CD
DECCA
Mar 17, 2023
DCA709236.2
CINEMA (ORCHESTRAL REPERTOIRE)
ERATO
Available as
Vinyl
$35.49
Jan 27, 2023
Alexandre Tharaud's relationship with film music runs deep - it also ranges wide. On his double album CINEMA, the French pianist delves into 50 celebrated film scores by composers from France, Italy, the USA, Japan, Poland, Romania and Lebanon - 19 in all. Among them are Michel Legrand, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Francis Lai, Marvin Hamlisch, Nino Rota and Philip Glass. As Tharaud says: "This album pays tribute to them with a selection of pieces for piano and orchestra and for piano solo, most in their original versions, creating a sound-world every bit as thrilling without the motion picture." The movie magic is reinforced by Tharaud's starry partners on the album: Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and making guest appearances are singers Vanessa Paradis, Camelia Jordana and Sabine Devieilhe, clarinettist Michel Portal and vioinist Nemanja Radulovic.
CINEMA (ORCHESTRAL REPERTOIRE)
$35.49
Vinyl
ERATO
Jan 27, 2023
EAO729092.1
CINEMA
ERATO
Available as
Vinyl
$25.49
Jan 13, 2023
Alexandre Tharaud's relationship with film music runs deep - it also ranges wide. On his double album CINEMA, the French pianist delves into 50 celebrated film scores by composers from France, Italy, the USA, Japan, Poland, Romania and Lebanon - 19 in all. Among them are Michel Legrand, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Francis Lai, Marvin Hamlisch, Nino Rota and Philip Glass. As Tharaud says: "This album pays tribute to them with a selection of pieces for piano and orchestra and for piano solo, most in their original versions, creating a sound-world every bit as thrilling without the motion picture." The movie magic is reinforced by Tharaud's starry partners on the album: Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and making guest appearances are singers Vanessa Paradis, Camelia Jordana and Sabine Devieilhe, clarinettist Michel Portal and vioinist Nemanja Radulovic.
CINEMA
$25.49
Vinyl
ERATO
Jan 13, 2023
EAO613092.1
IL CASANOVA DI FEDERICO FELLINI
DECCA
Available as
Vinyl
$52.31
Mar 24, 2023
The original soundtrack for Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976) sees Nino Rota putting into music Federico Fellini's opus on the legendary Venetian icon and tombeur des femmes, Giacomo Casanova. Winner of an Oscar for Best Costumes in 1977, the film is one of Fellini's finest, a grotesque and hyperbolic take on the life of Casanova that is matched by Rota's compositions. "Il Casanova di Federico Fellini" possibly is one of Rota's most eerie and enigmatic scores, as if the Maestro had finally poured into a soundtrack all of his love for esotericism. The music wraps you up like the Venetian mist. The compositions are constantly on the edge of classical music with playful nuances and the use of instruments like viola and cello. Vocals become a cornerstone, echoing the tradition of 18th-century Italian opera. However, Rota also leaves room for more experimental, electronic and estranging vibes that make the soundtrack a one-of-a-kind voyage into the creativity of the Maestro. Double Vinyl LP - 14 Tracks Previously Unreleased on Vinyl
IL CASANOVA DI FEDERICO FELLINI
$52.31
Vinyl
DECCA
Mar 24, 2023
DCA709236.1
Rota: Symphonies No 1 & 2 / Ruud, Norrköping So
BIS
Available as
CD
$21.99
Aug 01, 1998
Classical Music
Rota: Symphonies No 1 & 2 / Ruud, Norrköping So
$21.99
CD
BIS
Aug 01, 1998
BIS-CD-970
Malipiero: Symphonies Vol 2 / Almeida, Moscow SO
Naxos
Available as
CD
$19.99
$13.99
May 26, 2009
MALIPIERO Symphonies: No. 1, “In quattro tempi, come le quattro stagioni;” No. 2, “Elegiaca.” Sinfonie del silenzio e della morte • Antonio de Almeida, cond; Moscow SO • NAXOS 8.570879 (77:40)
CDs containing the works of Gian Francesco Malipiero (1883–1973) occupy less than two inches of shelf space in my collection, so by no means can I claim more than passing familiarity with his music. My first encounter with this composer, however, was on a 1950s Nonesuch LP with the Stuyvesant String Quartet playing one of Malipiero’s string quartets. That recording, if anyone is interested, has been transferred to CD by Bridge.
Malipiero was one of the so-called “generazione dell’ottanta” (generation of the 1880s) composers that included Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948), Respighi (1879–1936), Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880–1968), Riccardo Zandonai (1883–1944), Alfredo Casella (1883–1947), and Castelnuovo Tedesco (1895–1968). If permitted to engage in a bit of chronological stretching, I’d also include in this group Nino Rota (1911–1979) and Gian Carlo Menotti (1911–2007). In a 31:5 Rota review, I substituted for “generazione dell’ottanta” the “identity crisis generation.” Here were several Italian composers working independently of each other, but each in similar circumstances. Instrumental music in 19th-century Italy was all but dead, having been displaced by opera. And while all of the above-named composers made contributions to the operatic literature, one aspect of their shared dilemma was that Italian opera had by this time already achieved its apogee in Verdi and Puccini. At the same time, they also shared a desire to create a new legacy of Italian instrumental music, which led to their second dilemma. They retained strong roots in 19th-century Romantic traditions, yet their lives intersected those of other roughly contemporaneous 20th-century Italians—Dallapiccola, Nono, and Berio—who were committed to keeping abreast of the more modernistic and avant-garde trends elsewhere on the Continent. As a result, the “generazione dell’ottanta” came to be seen largely as a throwback to an earlier period.
Malipiero was enormously prolific, and much of his output is mostly of a serious nature, weighted towards Classical-form symphonies, concertos, and chamber works. His music never gained the traction of Respighi’s more easily digested style, but Malipiero’s smaller following of intellectual elites was significant and influential. Among his admirers was the aforementioned Dallapiccola, and Bruno Maderna was one of his students. It seems that Malipiero played a bit loose with musical terminology. No fewer than 17 of his works include in their titles the word “sinfonia,” and in the case of one of them on this disc, “sinfonie,” though not all of them necessarily fit the description of what is commonly thought of as a symphony. This also leads to some confusion, for the two numbered symphonies heard here are nowhere near being among the composer’s earliest efforts in the form. Three symphonies preceded the No. 1, and by quite a few years: the Sinfonia degli eroi (1905), the Sinfonia del mare (1906), and the Sinfonie del silenzio e della morte (1910) listed in the headnote. The Symphony No. 1, subtitled “In quattro tempi, come le quattro stagioni,” was not written until 1933, and its successor, the Symphony No. 2, subtitled “Elegiaca,” followed three years later in 1936.
The Sinfonie del silenzio e della morte (“Symphonies of Silence and Death”) is more like three interconnected tone poems than it is a three-movement symphony. Inspired by Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, the first movement, “Danza tragica,” is a lot less macabre sounding than its description might suggest. The music has a distinctly Russian flavor to it, echoes of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bare Mountain being inescapable. But the specter of evil conjured by Malipiero is neither as vivid nor as visceral as that of Mussorgsky’s shrieking fiends. The second movement bears the heading that gives the work its name, while the third movement bears the heading, “Il molino della morte” (The Mill of Death). Whatever Malipiero’s morbid, ghoulish, and grisly intent may have been, his score too often belies it with interruptions by arching lyrical themes and infusions of lush orchestral writing. The work is simply too fetching to be anything other than a less-than-hair-raising ride on the lighter side of the dark side.
Malipiero’s Symphony No. 1 (“In four movements, like the four seasons”) was inspired by the Venetian poet Anton Maria Lamberti’s Le stagioni. The Symphony is programmatic only superficially and not representational in content. The music is abstract, and its formal structure laid out in four movements that proceed in a slow-fast-slow-fast order. The piece is fragrant with scents of the Orient, of the exotic, of early Debussy, and indeed of Respighi. In fact, if you like Respighi’s Roman trilogy, you are bound to find a close relative to it in Malipiero’s Symphony. It’s an exquisitely beautiful score, easily and immediately accessible, luxuriantly orchestrated, and filled with many memorable mood-evoking passages. I was so spellbound by the Lento, ma non troppo that I had to listen to it a second time before continuing on to the last movement. As the saying goes, “You can take the Romantic out of the 19th century, but . . .”.
Eschewing even the superficial program of the Symphony No. 1, the Symphony No. 2, “Elegiaca,” is also in four movements, but orders them in a fast-slow-fast-slow sequence. Three years in Malipiero’s life made no difference in his style. He was at this juncture still a dyed-in-the-wool Romantic, and this work dating from 1936 is as resplendent and gorgeous as the previous one. Again, it’s in the slow movements that Malipiero pours out his heart and soul in music that is never cloying but that nonetheless can make you weep. Considering the modernist trends of the time—Schoenberg’s Fourth String Quartet was written in the same year—it’s little wonder that history has marginalized Malipiero, along with many of the composers mentioned at the outset, as regressive and even reactionary. But unless one is an academic elitist of the worst kind, that should not be an argument against music written by any composer in any period that is beautiful and moving; and I can tell you that Malipiero’s music is both. I know that I, for one, having heard this disc, will be expanding my heretofore very limited Malipiero collection.
There do not appear to be any competing recordings of these works currently listed, so it’s providential that Antonio de Almeida and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra give exceptionally fine performances. I did not realize, however, until reading the fine print, that this Naxos disc is actually a re-release of a 1993 recording that originally appeared on the marco polo label. So make sure you don’t already have it before you run out and buy this one. If you don’t, this is a must-have purchase.
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![Rota: La notte di un nevrastenico & I due timidi / Bonolis, Reate Festival Orchestra [Blu-ray]](//arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3846636.jpg?v=1778388817&width=800)
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![Rota: La notte di un nevrastenico & I due timidi / Bonolis, Reate Festival Orchestra [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3846636.jpg?v=1778388817&width=800)
