Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Video Format: DVD 9
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Subtitles: Italian, English
Running Time: 153 Minutes
Region Code: 0
Sound Format: Stereo PCM

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Concerning his teaching method, Chopin held rigorously to the old legato school, the school of Clementi and of Cramer. This statement by George Mathias is in itself enough to gauge the importance of Johann Baptist Cramer in the history of piano teaching. Cramer's approach to composition retained the strong baroque influence of Bach, H�ndel and Scarlatti combined with the Viennese classicism of Mozart and Haydn - Cramer's lasting friendship with the latter began when he played for Haydn in 1791. Cramer was also open to the new music of the time and his tours enabled him to hear it first hand in Paris, Berlin, the Low Countries, Munich and Vienna. From 1817 he lived for a period in Germany - indeed in the second decade of the 19th century Cramer was considered among the greatest pianist-composers together with Clementi and Dussek. The 60 Etudes contained in this publication are those which have become classics as selected and revised by Hans von B�low with comments and fingering. Cramer published the original complete 84 Etudes in two books: the first in 1804 for Breitkopf & H�rtel of Leipzig and the second some time between 1807 and 1808. Those dates are particularly important because Book I of Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum op. 44 did not come out until 1817.

The College of Music of Sant’Onofrio, one of the wonders of baroque Naples, was founded in the late 1500s as a foundling institution to train orphans and abandoned children to work as artisans. Within a few years, its educational policy had shifted to musical training and singing and during the 1600s it was home to the finest composers in the city. They transformed the rigidly austere musical geometry of northern Europe into something wholly new, as though infusing the darkness of the north with the immense, intensely bright light of the south. Nicola Porpora was just such a composer. In 1710 the 24 year-old Porpora presented his opera Berenice in Rome with great success. While in the city, Haendel himself saw it and went to congratulate its composer. Porpora wrote a great deal of music for religious purposes and opened a singing school which Farinelli also attended. Leonardo Leo is the other great composer from Sant’Onofrio. Almost a decade younger than Porpora, a combination of overwork and delicate health killed Leo at the relatively young age of fifty. He had already produced a number of new operas by 1738 when his reputation for music earned him the commission of a lifetime to write an opera to celebrate the wedding of Charles III and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Leo put everything else to one side and took as his subject the wedding of Psyche and Cupid. Yet despite the success of his opera for the imperial wedding, Leo continued to write music – both sacred and opera, whether serious or comic. Unsurprisingly, his name was a household word throughout Europe.

Around the year 1906, Perosi conceived the large-scale project to dedicate symphonic works for full orchestra to Italian cities, some of which had been the venues of his musical experience. Over the years that followed, the "Roma", "Venezia", "Firenze", "Messina", "Tortona", "Milano", "Torino" and "Genova" suites appeared, with, perhaps, a ninth, unfinished one for "Naples". The project was to have concluded with a tenth suite entitled "Italia", which would have included voices with the orchestra. Composer Alberto Gasco provided this interpretation of Perosi's intentions: "Maestro did not intend writing description music, nor creating a portrait of the cities themselves. Was this wise? I do not think so, and confirming my opinion is the fact that the Messina suite, as the composer himself decalres, was inspired by the horrific reality of the city in ruins. Therefore, little by little, Perosi arrived at the idea of creating a special character in the music of his suites. Entitling his compositions aftre Rome, Venice and Florence, through sound he conveyed the solemn majesty of the metropolis, the infinite languor of the city on the lagoon, and the carefree, pulsating Italian soul of the city of art, condensing emotional aspects into his works." Author Vittorio Podrecca offered this praise of the compositions: "Here, Perosi, with soul, reawakens the symphony by composing suites. Radiating through his noteworthy qualities are a limpidity of inspiration and design, sweetness of effects, sincerity of emotion, persistent elegiac poetry, and efficacious, tasteful orchestration."

In an age of ultraspecialization that obsesses over minute detail, artists such as Nicola Alaimo remind us that, as elsewhere, in opera versatility is a virtue. The youthful Mr. Alaimo has an impressive CV, broad in scope and variety. His chosen musical home is, of course, 19th century melodrama, ranging from his beloved Rossini, to Bellini, Donizetti and the major works of Verdi. Nonetheless, Mr. Alaimo is thoroughly comfortable with an earlier repertoire comprising Mozart and the Neapolitans, and also with the music of a later era. The giovane scuola had no great love for baritones, but Mr. Alaimo has sung Puccini, Cilea and his Neri Chiaramantesi in Giordano's Cena della beffe made it's mark on opera lovers. The results speak for themselves and his career is there for all to see. Doubters may seek out major venues, conductors or directors where or with whom Nicola Alaimo has not performed- they will not find any, however. Mr. Alaimo has sung Rossini not only all over the world, but also close to home in a long successful partnership with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as Dandini in Cenerentola, don Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, Aliprando in Matilde di Shabran, the title role in Guillaume Tell, dom Pomponio in Gazzetta, and the Duke of Ordow in Torvaldo e Dorliska.

Classical Music

Josef Misliveček (1737-81), dubbed the “Divine Bohemian” by his contemporaries and a friend of Mozart, premiered his version of L’Olimpiade, in traditional Italian operatic style and with a libretto quite faithful to Metastasio’s original text, in 1778 in Naples, a city in which he experienced great audience appreciation. On November 23 and 25, 2012, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna hosted the first modern-day revival of the opera produced by the Scuola dell’Opera Italiana. Oliver von Dohnányi conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

Speaking in general about Porpora, and in particular his Ariadne, in 1910 the French musicographer Romain Rolland wrote "Histor didn't do him justice. He was fit to compete with Handel, and the comparison between Handel's Ariadne and Porpora's, staged a few weeks apart, is not at all in favor of the former. Handel's music is elegant; but doesn't have the strength of certain arias in Porpora's Ariadne in Naxos. These arias' form has an excessively classical regularity; but powerful inspiration circulates through these Roman temples." The common place of Porpora, a singing teacher ready to subordinate everything to his pupils' voices, must be reflected upon in the light of the vocal writing in these pages: in which belcanto flourishes are generally administered abundantly and in each case almost always justified by musical and expressive reasons and immersed in the character's specific dimension.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Giuseppe Nicolini (1762-1842) enjoyed wide popularity in his day: several of this work’s arias became famous and were well known, particularly the duet between Giulietta and Monsieur Le Blau “Micomanda il signor zio”. Le due gemelle fits into the category of comic opera, as genre that reached its peak in the late 1700s with Cimarosa and Paisiello and that developed into “dramma giocoso” in the 1800s. Composed for the Teatro Valle, Rome carnival season of 1808, this is its first recording.

Classical Music

The Oratorio Gioas re di Giuda, “a Sacred Drama,” was probably the first important symphonic-choral work by Boccherini, composed during the years 1764-1765 for performances in Lucca, the musician’s native town. After his studies in Rome and his successes in Vienna, where his brother GianGastone worked as a dancer and also as librettist for Haydn, Boccherini returned to Lucca and applied to join the Cappella Palatina. Shortly afterwards, Boccherini again began touring Europe in a Duo together with his friend Filippo Manfredi, concertmaster of the Lucca orchestra: they went first to Genoa- where evidence suggests performances of his first two oratorios- then to Paris and finally Madrid. Metastasio’s libretto for Gioas is based on one of the numerous struggles for the control of Jerusalem. Athalia usurps power after having assassinated David’s last descendants. Saved by a miracle, the youngest one, Joash, is reared in the temple by the wife of Jehoiada, the high priest. The drama opens when Ismael (one of the Levite leaders) is informed of the plan to overthrow the usurper. At the same time Athalia, with the help of her minister, Mattan, summons Sebia, unfortunate mother of the victims, in the hope of convincing her to present a false heir to the people of Israel. In Part Two, Jehoiada succeeds in thwarting the evil plan of treacherous Athalia and her wicked counselor, Mattan. Jehoiada finally overthrows the tyrants and offers Joash the throne to great jubilation of the people.

Donizetti’s opera Parisina is a tragedia lirica in three acts with libretto by Felice Romani. The work is based on Lord Byron’s poem of the same name, written in 1816. The work was well received at its premiere in Florence in 1833, then gained more notoriety a decade later when it was referenced in Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Mariella Devia sings the title role in this performance. Both the public and critics alike have noted this role among the other bel canto roles she has sung in her career. This production was recorded live on May 20, 1990 at the Teatro della Pergola, Florence, the same location where the work was premiered.