Classical Music

Classical Music

The Petite messe solennelle is unique in sacred music and is impossible to imitate or improve upon. Using only keyboards for the instrumental parts proves surprisingly effective and the solo pianoforte is particularly outstanding in the remarkable Prélude which combines Bach-like chromaticism with early hints of Impressionism or in the long introductions and postludes where it assumes a leading role, becoming the fifth soloist in the score. The writing for the solo voices however reverts to Rossinis operatic vein and makes considerable demands on the singers.

Pimpinone was premiered at the Teatro San Cassian in Venice on 26 November 1708 as the intermezzo of the opera seria Astarto. Born in Venice in 1671, Albinoni was already a major figure in music and his reputation was the equal of, if not superior to, that of Vivaldi. Albinoni’s original intermezzo was such a success not least because of its simple yet enormously amusing plot: a servant girl on the make finds a middle-class employer with plenty of money and little common sense. With a few tricks, she manages to marry him then reveals her true nature as a viper who dominates and cowers her poor husband with all manner of threats. The work’s three short acts feature plenty of duets both amorous and comic and recitatives, all of which showcase Albinoni’s bright, inventive style. This recording presents the original version with changes based on the libretto printed for the world premiere. As a tribute to the Venice school, this album has been completed with Benedetto Marcello’s Filetta e Spago. This intermezzo yet did not originally feature in an opera but in an Italian version of a tragedy by Corneille, Lucio Commodo, premiered at the Accademia de’ Nobili in Venice in 1719 and for which Marcello also composed an overture and several choruses. This is the first recorded performance of Filetta e Spago and the present edition is based on the original manuscript. The baroque ensemble plays period instruments and in the recitatives the continuo comprises harpsichord, theorbo and viola da gamba; both works on this disc employ da capo variations as would have been done in the early 18th century and for the same reason the recitatives provide the performers with an opportunity to demonstrate their own powers of invention.

This work is captivating in its intensity and focuses on aspects of and moments in Tasso's rich, eventful life. Indeed, Donizetti seems to have been so actively involved in drafting his subject that he may well have seen in Tasso not a little of himself. After all, both composer and poet hailed from Bergamo. Reports at the time indicate the opera was initially received with considerable warmth and, on occasion, outright enthusiasm. Yet this success proved short-lived. The growing vogue for tragic subjects in opera probably made Torquato Tasso seem an odd hotchpotch of unrelated elements with a finale that, for all its outstanding approach to the music, in dramatic terms had neither a properly happy nor unhappy ending. The fact remains, however that the music of Torquato Tasso is highly inventive – outstandingly so. If today's audiences can strike a balance between the several approaches to stagecraft in this opera, Torquato Tasso will reveal new delights for the eye and ear and so become one of the finest instances of Donizetti at his most experimental and charismatic.

Dom Sebastien, based on Scribe’s French libretto, was presented in Paris on November 13th, 1843. It was a popular success, though Donizetti was not completely satisfied with this work and, already during the first performances, began making changes. Scribe’s libretto was translated, at the end of 1843, into Italian by Giovanni Ruffini and, at the same time, into German by Leo Herz, who was the resident director at the Vienna Imperial Theater. Donizetti used Ruffini’s Italian libretto to effect his changes. At the beginning of 1844 the second version of Donizetti’s Don Sebastiano was ready. The Emperor wanted this opera to be presented in German; therefore Ruffini’s libretto was replaced by the Leo Herz’ German language version which had been prepared with the objective of almost completely following the rhythmic articulations of the Italian version. Therefore, the second version of Don Sebastiano, rewritten by Donizetti, was performed for the first time in Vienna on February 5th, 1845, in German, and Donizetti himself directed this and the following two performances, which means that the Viennese version is unquestionably authentic and represents the very last work of the Maestro. Unfortunately, at this point, Donizetti was already mentally disturbed and could no longer look after his work. The retouched libretto no longer fit with the music of Donizetti; therefore, all the rewritten parts of the libretto were also musically re-edited so that they are not truly attributable to Donizetti. This was the Italian version, re-edited, thus not authentic, which was published in 1865. All the successive performances in Italian were, thus, apocryphal; Donizetti had nothing to do with them. The fortunate discovery of the original text by Giovanni Ruffini, led to the revival of the second version, preferred by Donizetti, and in Italian instead of German.

In the search for a specific form and language, the music of “Sì”, under the modernist patina, returns to our most sincere sources, to the spirits of comedy and comic opera. After all, the audience of the melodrama found in the 'little lyric' a sort of deforming nail in which situations, behaviours and conventions were reflected with polite caricature. Such was the Mascagni operetta, which, in its background of parodist grotesque, re-enacts the petty-bourgeois salacity, even in the title: Sì, from the name of the protagonist, so called because she never knew say no to anyone. In this operetta Mascagni lavished the gifts of his most spontaneous melody; the letters aria sung by Vera, the andantino of the duet in Act 1, the page of the wedding party in act 2, the seduction duet between Chablis and Vera, the “sad waltz” sung by Sì; the prelude for strings opening Act 3. The Mascagni talent however reveal itself in the entire score with his fluent streak, rhythmic liveliness, and skill for developing the ensemble scenes.

Audiences from the far east have always enjoyed opera. After the Japanese and the Koreans, who exported their musical glories since the 80s to Europe, now it is the turn of the Chinese, with a huge number of aspiring singers from that country studying at foreign Colleges of Music. Some twenty years ago, the name to conjure with was Warren Mok, a Hong Kong tenor tipped as Asia's answer to Pavarotti. Today, that moniker belongs to Chuanyue Wang an excellent tenor featured on this release, his very first. A grand slam in Chinese domestic vocal music competitions, Professor at the Central Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Opera signed singer, Chuanyue Wang has won first prizes in The International Vocal Competition of Seoul in Korea, the vocal competition Martini City of Mantova al Bibiena, the Chinese Culture Ministry's Wen Hua Competition, the 15th Young Singer CCTV Competition for Bel Canto, the Chinese Music Golden Bell Award, the 5th China International Voice Competition. Hewas also a participant in the Carlo Bergonzi Master Class, the Okazaki International Voice Master Class, the Brasov Opera House Training Program in Romania and the Schonberg Institute in Vienna.

Lamberto Pavanelli was born in Ferrara in 1890, but he established himself in Imola at a young age, graduating in piano and composition from the local conservatory. There is nothing known about his debut as a musician, but he must have been noticed not far on since, when he was just a bit older than twenty, he drew upon himself the attention of Casa Ricordi, which strove to represent his Vanna in the Teatro Dal Verme, a prestigious theater in Milan at that time. The opera was performed on November 23, 1910. Vanna is an exquisite score that transfigures a typical Realist libretto, with an orchestration having, at times, an almost Ravel-like touch. The overture is an introductory piece that already encloses within it the first signs of an impending drama, with the death knell, which resounds again at the end of the opera. The characters are well-constructed: the main character, since her first appearance, is presented to us as a young girl who is in love and who is indifferent to everything else. Exemplary, in this sense, is the beautiful romance, ‘Anima mia di neve, ricordi?’, perhaps the most significant page of the entire score.

Inactive since Il Piccolo Marat (1921), on March 23, 1932 Mascagni reproposed Pinotta, reelaborated from his cantata In Filanda. The Author’s interventions in 1932 were undoubtedly important: the little chorus of Zeffiri that after the short prelude announces the idyll shows a harmonic restlessness hardly thinkable in a twenty-year-old Mascagni; and the same goes for the unusual effect in the finale, with the two voices whispering a fading “T’amo” on the silence of the orchestra. Also, the rich instrumental ensemble is much wider than the one thought for the cantata. For the symphonic poem with voice A Giacomo Leopardi Mascagni followed the great examples of Liszt, Smetana and Strauss: the poem gets its inspiration not only from the few verses sung by the soprano; wider fragments - quoted in limine on the score - supply the expressive suggestions to the orchestra interludes acting as “bridges” among the different episodes. So we might say that this A Giacomo Leopardi is not a cantata, but a downright symphonic poem where a few singable episodes occasionally emerge. Zanetto can be considered as a “little” opera not because of its short duration, of the orchestra ensemble including no brass or its only two characters (soprano and mezzosoprano en travesti), but because of its decidedly lyrical style and basic lack of action: the act is just a long encounter-conversation in a Renaissance Florence between a young minstrel and Silvia, a rich, bored lady who reciprocates his love but, being a courtesan, cannot allow herself such a feeling and must reject the young boy.

L’incoronazione di Poppea is a milestone in the history of music and the high point of the early baroque. This recording avails itself of an international cast and period instrument ensemble including established performers and young talents from Italy, France, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Albania, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, China, Mongolia and Korea. Conductor Federico Bardazzi has analyzed the expressive aspects of the score so that the music would bring out the nature of the characters and has worked on the variety of tone colour available in the basso continuo associated with the “affetti” throughout the opera and hence the association of particular instruments with the main characters. The instrumental arrangements are highly diversified, ranging from sopranino and guitar, through passages for strings only to exuberant tutti sections with percussion. A hallmark of Bardazzi's approach to performance of 17th century repertoire is the interaction of treble instruments with voices in choral numbers, duets, versified pieces and airs and also foregrounding those instruments in certain sections of the opera identified with a given character. The many tone colours of this broad palette valorize the instrumental writing in the vocal numbers, which is in keeping with the dictates of Monteverdi's seconda prattica.

The performance of Cavalleria Rusticana republished in this album took place in the hometown of Mascagni, Livorno, on the occasion of the centenary of the premiere, which took place in 1890 in Rome, at the Teatro Costanzi. Already scheduled for some time, this publication due out in autumn 2021 commemorates one of the most important voices of post-World War II, the tenor Giuseppe Giacomini, recently passed away at the age of 80, and caught here in a role to him particularly congenial and at the zenith of his career. Known and loved by European, American and Asian opera audiences, a unique voice for its richness of harmonics and extension. The English critic Alan Blyth wrote of him: “... he is the true inheritor of the spinto mantle last worn by Corelli, and to some extent by Vickers. Yet his tone, with his strongly baritonal timbre, bears an even closer resemblance to that of Francesco Merli...” Conductor is Bruno Bartoletti, who had a long and honored theatrical and recording career; to be noticed the "extraordinary participation" of Fedora Barbieri in the part of Lucia.

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.

Zingari's libretto was inspired by Alexander Pushkin's poem "The Gypsies". Following Zazà and Il Rolando di Berlino, Leoncavallo had abandoned the Wagner-inspired practice of writing his own librettos, and accepted the collaboration with Enrico Cavacchioli supported by the publisher Sonzogno. The opera first premiered in London in 1912. Having had considerable success at the time, the opera left soon the repertoire of theaters following the composer's death. Today, we can affirm that Zingari isn't a poor quality repeat of Pagliacci, and Leoncavallo's energy and creativity had not abandoned him. And it is unfair that the opera was consigned to oblivion for so long, apart from a revival by Italian broadcasting in the RAI production of 1975 and a further staging at Montecatini in 1999. This recording is thus a major step towards rectifying this state of affairs.

Critics, conductors and colleagues agree that Franco Bordoni’s voice, accent and interpretation constitute Verdi at his most noble. Which is hardly surprising given the singer’s awe of the composer and approach to his art. Bordoni had all the technique he needed to exploit to the full his voice’s volume, texture with its wealth of harmonics and two octave range with no uneven spots. The timbre and color of his voice made him the perfect dramatic baritone, a voice that saw its owner through years of unflagging, full-on performances.