Bruno Maderna always ascribed great importance to insight and imagination, even during the period in which he followed the most rigorous serial procedures. Maderna’s preference for concreteness in sound images, his practical approach to composition problems, and his receptiveness to language diversity explain the extraordinary ascendancy he had over the Italian composers who visited Darmstadt in the Fifties and Sixties, including Nono, Berio, Donatoni, and Clementi. But they also explain his gradual withdrawal from the most radical experiments of the avantgarde, and his tendency, during the last decade, to pursue a constant osmosis between different styles and materials (also through frequent overflows between his own compositions), often ending up in theatrical forms.

The Hyperion has been described as a “Lyric in the form of a show”. It was presented in its first version as a mobile cycle of vocal, orchestral and electronic pieces based on fragments of Friedrich Hoelderlin’s novel "Hyperion, oder der Heremit in Griechenland" (“Hyperion, or the Hermit in Greece”), the only novel written by the German poet. This book, an epistolary novel, was published in various versions, so it somehow could be regarded as a “work in progress” too. This recording represents an important document of the live version, reduced and adapted by the great actor Carmelo Bene, flanked by the RAI Symphony Orchestra from Milan, directed by Maestro Marcello Panni.

The instrumental ensemble Opera Quinta, directed by Fabrizio Longo, violin soloist of the team, adds an important element to the inexhaustible rediscovery of the eighteenth- century Italian heritage. The sonatas op. 1 by Angelo Michele Besseghi - composer of which, unfortunately, only few biographical information has reached us - were published in 1710, openly paying homage to the edition of his much more famous countryman who ten years earlier would have marked the course of European violin history: the Opera 5 by Arcangelo Corelli. Period ensemble Opera Quinta is violinist Fabrizio Longo, gambist Rosita Ippolito, lutenist Fabiano Merlante, and keyboardist Valeria Montanari.

The Centone di Sonate M.S. 112 is the last organic collection of sonate for violin and guitar composed by Paganini. The drawing up of this work, which is formed of 18 sonate evenly divided into three booklets (marked a, b and c) as was customary for a publication, probably began in Prague towards the end of 1828 and went on for several 11 years, during Paganini’s tour in Europe. It seems likely that the title Centone was attributed to the manuscripts after the composer’s death, during an operation of rearrangement of the unpublished material, with the purpose of generally indicating a collection of various pieces. Gianfranco Iannetta on violin and Walter Zanetti on guitar offer us the first six sonatas of the collection in a recording that for the first time is based solely on Paganini's autographed manuscripts.

This selection of seven arias plus the licenza (the closing homage to a sovereign) from the opera Sofonisba by the Milanese composer Maria Teresa Agnesi (1720-1795) appears in the 300th anniversary year of her birth, a moment, alas, when covid-19 has quenched live performances of her music. This recording is thus all the more welcome. Even today, she remains in the shadow of her more famous older sister, Maria Gaetana (1718-1799), a mathematician celebrated throughout Europe. The sisters grew up in the house of their father, a rich silk merchant, and already in 1739 the French traveler Charles de Brosses recorded Teresa’s keyboard performances in the family palazzo. She continued to be active in private Milanese circles, and composed three operas along with serenatas, largely for events connected to the Habsburg rulers of the city. She also produced solo and concerted keyboard music. Immediately after her father’s death, she married Pier Antonio Pinottini in 1753; she thus moved to his family’s castle in Cassino Scanasio (Rozzano, today the outskirts of Milan), but maintained some presence in the city’s musical life. The family’s fortune declined, and, after absence from public musical life, she died in genteel poverty. After the Arie con Istromenti (album TC720101), the voice of Elena de Simone becomes the interpreter of this new unpublished chapter dedicated to the rediscovery of the composer.

The flutist and researcher Daniele Salvatore, leader of the Armonia delle Sfere ensemble, in this double album presents the most ambitious instrumental work by Francesco Mancini, renowned composer of operas and oratories, typical representative of the Neapolitan tradition. Mancini is also a perfect example of the close cultural and musical connection between ‘Italy’ (a land united solely from a territorial aspect at that time, otherwise made up of several smaller kingdoms with different rulers, laws and economy, and significantly different culture, music and language),and London in that era: he claimed recognition with the opera Idaspe Fedele, played for the first time at the Haymarket Theatre of London on March 23rd in 1710,an opera which, together with Almahide (by anonymous author, debuting in January of the same year) was among the first ones in London to be sung entirely in Italian language. Mancini’s contribution to opera and sacred music is considerable, and his music is easily found all over Europe's many libraries, proving their author's popularity, however, the same can not be said about instrumental pieces of music written by him, of which we know just a few, such as the two toccatas for harpsichord featured on this recording, probably composed to be used for didactic purposes.

At last it is possible to present to the public the first monographic recording of works by Giuseppe Unia, who in the eighteen-sixties could boast the title of “court pianist-composer to His Majesty the King of Italy”, like his better-known colleague Hans von Bülow, court pianist to Ludwig ii of Bavaria and his friend Alfred Jaëll, pianist to the King of Hannover. Giuseppe Antonio Unia is one of the many Italian musicians whom history – or, should we say, time – has separated from us with the thin veil of oblivion. Yet his more than two hundred publications for publishers such as Ricordi, Canti and Vismara testify to a considerable degree of success, and the dedications of his works show that his friends were important people, both from a social point of view and from an artistic one. The pianists Massimiliano Génot and Andrea Vigna Taglianti here are proposing a careful selection of the piano works by Unia, fully reflecting the style and musical taste of Europe of his time, of which he was a profound connoisseur thanks to his numerous artistic experiences in Italy, Paris and Vienna.

The rediscovery of the Italian organ literature of the early twentieth century, long forgotten and undervalued, is enriched by this release which is focused on the figure of Ulysses Matthey, a great virtuoso of the instrument, talented teacher and refined composer. His activity is fully part of the Cecilian movement, of which he fully shares the intents of redeeming sacred music from the interference of the theatrical style that had dominated Italy in the nineteenth century. Organist endowed with a transcendental playing technique, Matthey in his compositions also aims - in the wake of Marco Enrico Bossi and Pietro Alessandro Yon - to the highest European virtuosity, taking as reference authors such as Claude Debussy, Aleksander Skriabin, Ottorino Respighi, as well as the favorite Johann Sebastian Bach. Fausto Caporali, head organist at the Cremona Cathedral, performs the complete original works for organ and Harmonium entirely on period instruments.

Virtue and love might be described as two stars that mark the horizon of the Baroque universe, are mutually complementary and strive to join each other, often also in competition and conflict. The arias selected for this cd, as well as the instrumental pieces, share a very evident underlying theme: virtue and love are more than dominant in them. Virtue is the link between love and the divine. The latter intervenes in the vicissitudes of human beings, helping them to get over grief, oppression, weakness, loss of love and illusion, and bringing them closer to good and truth. From the magnificent aria of the Polyphemus by Nicola Porpora, passing through Vivaldi and Handel to Niccolò Jommelli, the soprano Inés Lorans accompanied by the chamber orchestra 'Benedetto Marcello' conducted by Maurizio Colasanti, faces this various florilege of baroque arias in a live recording, completed by two Symphonies by Carlo Tessarini and Francesco Araja.

The name of Vittore Veneziani (1878-1958) is mainly associated with La Scala Opera House, where he was engaged as Chorus Master from 1921 to 1954. His fortunate Milanese idyll was abruptly interrupted in 1938 by the imposition of racial laws. Veneziani, being of Jewish religion, was obliged to flee to Switzerland, abandoning his profession as well as his post as choral conductor at the Synagogue and to Israelian School. When he came back to Italy, soon after Liberation was declared and La Scala lay in ruins, Veneziani resumed his activity with a memorable concert at La Scala on May 11th 1946 working side by side with Arturo Toscanini who had come back, too, from his American exile. His Catalogue, not at all a brief one, includes quite a lot of choir works, four melologues for spoken voice and orchestra, some Operas, symphonic and chamber compositions and a series of choir transcriptions of folk songs and Hebrew melodies. In the field of chamber music, an interesting sylloge of lyrics for voice and piano stands out. It is based on poems by writer Guido Pusinich (1908-1966) from Veneto. The present song collection and recording – by Beatrice Palumbo and Gian Francesco amoroso – form a project sustained and promoted by the Viktor Ullmann Festival, and these songs, despite their variety of musical language, can be defined as chamber music, clearly representing an evolution of both style and the social context in Italy at that time.