Hi everybody :-)
Just read the following American Record Guide review of my new Pilati CD on the Inedita label. Those primadonna critics should sometimes seriously think over their "profession's" credo and tasks. I think Mr. Hecht deserves this answer of mine, which I publish at the bottom.
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PILATI: Preludio, Aria, & Tarantella; Italian
Folk Songs; Bagatelles; Divertimento
Moscow Symphony/ Adriano/ Inedita 2757 (53 minutes)
Italian composer Mario Pilati (1903-38) was born in Naples, where he studied with Antonia Savasta. After moving to Milan, he worked for Ricordi as an arranger and taught pupils, among them Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Pilati achieved some success as a composer before dying at age 35. His pieces were performed for a while afterwards but eventually suffered the same post-war neglect that met several Italian composers active in the Fascist period. Pilati’s discovery has been a project of Adriano, who previously directed a Marco Polo disc (Naxos reissue) of more serious Pilati works. In terms of style, the works here are mainly neoclassical and somewhat steeped in folk music and Italian opera.
This is the first review of Pilati’s music in ARG. It is from the dark side, but first, full disclosure. I do not like “light” or “pops” music of any nationality. Nor do I care for music that lacks depth or bite, neither challenges nor engages me, and gives me nothing interesting to listen to. Worst of all is music that lacks inspiration. The works on this program meet all these criteria. They are simple, innocent to the point of unsophistication and perhaps even crudeness, repetitious, blocky in texture, and square in form (literally and figuratively). No flair for harmony is apparent, and the melodies say little.
Preludio, Aria e Tarantella begins with a lively solo violin. Parts of the harmony in Preludio (and elsewhere) sound like low-grade Mascagni but most is ordinary. Similar comments apply to the Aria, which, despite touches of Italian devices and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, sounds square. Tarantella is blocky, too long, and in this heavy performance, uncomfortably Russian.
Pilati’s treatment of the Italian Folksongs is “by the numbers” and repetitious. In the Bagatelles, I hear a touch of Prokofieff, a cute bassoon solo, and the influence of the American music and movie scores that Pilati admired, but most sound like pieces for children or music hall fluff.
The Divertimentos for brass are a little better. It may be a stretch, but one or two might interest a brass ensemble looking for something a little raw that sounds like Italian street bands.
The workaday performances do not help. A good Italian orchestra and conductor steeped in the idiom might make more of the orchestral pieces, but I’m not sure how much more. The brass works fare better because the players put them forward with more enthusiasm and flair. Even so, a group that pays closer attention to neat tone quality and ensemble might make a better case for them.
HECHT
American Record Guite 09/27/2011
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Dear Mr. Hecht
Concerning your review of my Inedita CD with music by Mario Pilati:
1) It’s always an awkward thing to learn from a reviewer what he personally likes or not, even though this does and should not interest the reader, nor will end up into the annals of music history compared to all the work real musicians do.
A reviewer is here to criticise the music and the performance from an objective, expert’s and specialist’s point of view, in order that potential buyers of a CD still have some room to decide and not have to observe that the reviewer has a problem with the pieces he listened. American Record Guide is one of those Magazines like Fanfare which sometimes reveals more on the personalities of their writers than on the composers they write on, but this same pervert attitude occurs also over here in Europe.
You seem to have no idea about Italian folk music, and before you write some silly sentences as, for example, that Pilati’s pieces lack inspiration, you may consider that folksong-based music is just inspired by the folk tunes, which are used/arranged and nothing more. With the same criteria you also may not like folksong arrangements by Bartok or Kodaly, being also just skilful orchestrations and arrangements - with no further “inspiration”.
But, if you don’t like all this kind of music, why do you review it and not hand it over to an expert colleague?
2) That Pilati had “no flair for harmony” is absolute nonsense, the more so you do not explain exactly where and why. Pilati uses and plays with harmony in a most sophisticated and humorous way, as did his contemporaries Respighi and Casella, with a twinkle in the eye. You seem not to have a flair for (Italian?) humour at all.
3) Pilati’s teacher was not a woman: you spell “Antonia” instead of “Antonio” Savasta.
4) The Title of “Divertimento” is not “Divertimentos” in plural.
5) What exactly does the expression “uncomfortably Russian” mean??
6) What exactly does the expression “the melodies say little” mean?
7) What does the expression “sounds square” mean?
Adriano, conductor
Zurich/Switzerland
