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Topics - alberto

#41
I just would like to indicate that the July monthly French magazine "Classica" dedicates a long article to "20 genies de la musique anglaise a decouvrir".
In brief to any of the twenty chosen a profile is dedicated . Ten get a longer space , ten a smaller one.
Here are the ten with a longer profile (and a big picture):
-Edward Elgar
-Frederick Delius
-Ralph Vaughan Williams
-Gustav Holst
-Frank Bridge
-Arnold Bax
-Gerald Finzi
-William Walton
-Benjamin Britten
-Michael Tippett
Shorter profile (and smaller pictures) for:
-Charles Villiers Stanford
-Herbert Howells
-Arthur Bliss
-John Herbert Foulds
-Havergal Brian
-Cyril Scott
-Peter Warlock
-William Alwyn
-Malcolm Arnold
-Roberto Gerhard
#42
The Italian label Stradivarius has just released (STR 33889):
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Concerto n.2 for vn. and orch. (1963)
Flute concerto (1968)
"Rispetti e strambotti" (Quartet n.1, version for strings orch. -1920)
Symphony n.6 "Degli archi" (1948)
  F.Parrino, vn. S.Parrino, fl. Orch. della Provincia di Catanzaro, F. Di Mauro cond.
Both concertos are claimed (I think rightly) to be first recordings.
Both were composed in old age (Vn. Concerto at 81, the Flute at 86) and are unpretentious in size (18' 51" the Violin; mere 12' 23 the Flute).
Both present the usual features of quirkiness, fancy, freedom of forms, unpredactibility.
If not the best Malipiero, both are easily among the best music composed in Italy in the '60s.
"Rispetti and Strambotti" , however, represent Malipiero at his best.
Good soloists.
The performances from a modest sized, young and unknown orchestra sound good, beyond my expectations.
#43
The label Stradivarius has just released
Goffredo Petrassi (1904-2003)
Concerto for piano and orch. (1939)
Ballet suite "La follia di Orlando" (1943)
Partita for orch. (1932)
(Alfonso Alberti, piano; Orchestra Nazionale RAI, Torino, cond. Arturo Tamayo: STR 33824)
It is neo-classical stuff. Think of Petrassi First Concerto for orch.(in the downloads section). Or of the neo-classical Casella in not bitter mood.
The Partita is busy and energetic.
"La follia d'Orlando" is rather playful.
The rather "big" (around 32') Piano Concerto sounds to me invigorating and fully interesting (not avoiding virtuoso "romantic" gestures which do not sound off the argument).
Good performances.
IMHO an important recording.
I gather that Chandos considered (maybe still considers) to record both the Partita and "La follia d'Orlando", but resolved -up to now- to record Petrassi's Magnificat and Psalm IX (still neo-classical works).
#44
I fond and bought as a very cheap bargain "Karl Halle - Charles Hallé Piano music", Wolfgang Glemser piano, 1995 release, label ARS Produktion FCD 368 349.
The Cd claims to contain the entire published output (which includes only piano music) of Hallé.
Youthful sets (early '40s) of short pieces (except a Scherzo op.4) in rather Mendelssohnian style and idiom.
Does anyone has it?
#45
Maybe somebody will be intersted to:
"Sounds of the 30s". Decca 476 4832 (Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus; S.Bollani piano) Ravel, Stravinsky, Weill, de Sabata.
The curiousity here is a substantial (at least in length: 27' 53") suite from the ballet "Le mille e una notte" (Thousand and one nights-1931) by Victor de Sabata.
Here the great conductor (remembered mostly for some overly Straussian tone poems) delivers a light score, almost Gershwinian, resembling Broadway musicals. Catchy and tuneful (even if not with outstandingly memorable tunes).
Since 2009 exists a (good) Universal recording of the complete ballet (lasting almost '80); Orch. Giuseppe Verdi conducted by Francesco Maria Colombo (a former critic turned...conductor).
Coming back to the Chailly , maybe its content will appear odd as (alongside with some short Weills and Stravinskys) the "main dish" is Ravel' s Concerto in G (well) played by the jazz pianist Stefano Bollani (who previously recorded not only Gershwin's Rhapsody and Concerto, but also Poulenc's Concerto Champetre in the optional piano version, maybe the first since Emil Gilels). 
#46
Composers & Music / Pfitzner Von Deutscher Seele
Wednesday 28 March 2012, 11:12
Recently in Berlin, still Mecca for the classical Cd hunter (and in general for the classical music fan) I have bought, inter alia, Hans Pfitzner's Von Deutsche Seele (2 Cd Capriccio C5092 - 2011 re-release (first release 2008) Ingo Metzmacher cond. with excellent soloists, choral and orchestral Berlin forces).
This great and long (but not too much ) 1921 cantata needs repeated listenings , but even at first hearing reveals remarkable qualities.
Several recordings exist from the fifties (and another recent one) and in Berlin they had all of them available!
The title may appear ambiguous (related to Pfitzner), but the Eichendorff (1788-1857) settings do not appear politically uncorrect (if is really one has to be worried).
This 1921 cantata appears to me both a cross-road of its time both a very personal utterance.
Anyone has to comment? 
#47
I have bought by chance, as a cheap bargain, the Cd "Genie oblige!" - Franz Liszt Origin, Oeuvre and Legacy in Song. Soprano Wendy Waller, M. Singer piano. Esoteric label Istia (2009 release).
The "legacy" part of the Cd is represented by two Grieg (obviously not unsung), three Draeseke op.2 and two Ingeborg Bronsart. I have found the Draeseke particularly impressive (they don't appear on the web.site of Draeseke discography).
Anyone more expert than me may comment about such Cd?
#48
I understand that Chandos has planned to record in forthcoming months the Magnificat (soprano, chorus and orchestra) and the Psalm IX (chorus, brass, strings and three pianos) by Goffredo Petrassi.
Both are early works from the '30, akin in idiom to the First Concerto for Orchestra.
#49
Composers & Music / Best operas of the past fifty years
Tuesday 29 November 2011, 11:09
A much better English than mine would be needed to start this problematic topic.
We have tested the vitality (or lack)  of the symphony (and the "concept" itself) in the last fifty years (and the discussion is going on).
So, taking again as starting-point the year 1960, which are according to you the best (not simply your favourites) three operas of the past fifty years, sung or unsung (with short reasons)?
My list would be:
-B.Britten "Death in Venice". Masterful (but a bit over-intellectual) culmination of a great operatic (and not only) composer (here however less overtly and less successfully theatrical than in several earlier operas);
-John Adams "The Death of Klinghoffer". New and fresh blood injected into the opera. Nothing over-intellectual. Direct communication; masterful craftmanship; real theatricality.
-O.Messiaen "Saint Francois". Great "vision", nobilty and mastership (by a great composer not really showing theatrical istinct).
I have taken in consideration the most disparaged composers (by whom I know, in some way -maybe insufficiently, at least one opera in the period concerned: Adès, Nyman, Daugherty, Bolcom, Schnittke, Berio, Nono, Maderna, Menotti, Rota, Barber, Tippett, Henze, Birtwistle, Bernstein, Penderecky, P.Glass, Reich, Stokhausen).
Not considered (as I don't know any of their operas, and I would) Rautavaara, Tubin, Weinberg, Schedrin, Corigliano, Harbison, Adamo, Heggie, Landowsky.
Of course not considered a lot of others (possibly worthy). 
#50
I gather from the Italian magazine "Musica" that Chloe Hanslip, Alexander Vedernikov and the Italian Swiss Radio Orchestra have recorded the violin concerto by Schoeck and Glazunov (I suppose for a "Romantic Violin Concerto" release).
I love the Schoeck a lot and I am a candidate to buy the forthcoming record (I have already the Novalis and Claves recording, probably now unavailable).
Will it be a kind of "odd couple" (as the Glazunov is much more recorded than the Schoeck)?
Obviously it is not like the Schubert-Gal symphonies "case"; but is it maximum of logical to couple a fairly performed and recorded (Glazunov) with a fairly unsung and underrecorded (Schoeck)?
#51
Sorry: it was broadcast in the Italian Television, not very late in the evening, about thirty five years ago: there were two public TV channels and nothing else.
As a youngster (thinking to have sometimes better things to do) I didn't follow the entire cycle.
Anyway I SAW and listened (performed mostly by the Roma Radio and Television Orchestra........later, about 15 years ago, disbanded):
-Elgar Symphony n.1
-Pizzzetti Symphony in A
-Martinu Symphony n.1
-Walton Symphony n.2
Since a lot of years (certainly in Italy, I don't know elsewhere) a cycle like that would be unthinkable on a "generical" TV channel.
#52
Recordings & Broadcasts / Pizzetti complete piano music
Tuesday 01 November 2011, 09:58
In the past somebody in the forum showed interest for the music of Ildebrando Pizzetti.
They could be now interested in his complete piano music (Giancarlo Simonacci pf., two cheap but short (85'01") Brilliant Cd, 9202).
Very fine for me the two substantial items: the Sonata and "Canti di Ricordanza"(variations on a theme from Pizzetti own opera Fra Gherardo).
Fine for me also the shortish tryptich "Poemetto Romantico" (the only work I listened to in an actual concert).
#53
Composers & Music / Ravel/Y.P.Tortelier "Symphony"
Saturday 29 October 2011, 14:11
It is the magnificent Piano Trio orchestrated by Yan Pascal Tortelier (Chandos 9114, year 1992 release). In the booklet the conductor/composer defends (rightly in his way) his work with several reasons. But the result appears, IMMO, in comparison to the exalting original masterpiece, not really convincing, and diminutive. The work, in new shape, sounds "lightweight" (not so the original).
(By the way, is much better, according to me, the orchestration by Marius Constant of "Gaspard de la Nuit"-an apparently impossible task).
Has anybody different impressions?
#54
Recordings & Broadcasts / Franco Alfano on Naxos
Monday 10 October 2011, 09:21
I suppose some of you have listened Naxos 8.572753: Violin Sonata (for me very rewarding, even if not completely un-taxing to listen to); Piano Quintet (playful and tuneful); plus a short (and arranged) Nenia and Scherzino.
I have found the above remarkable. More than the (anyway fine) Cello Sonata and Concerto for Piano Trio on an earlier Naxos.
More then the Symphonies (CPO) or the opera Cyrano de Bergerac (which, while "working" on DVD, risks boredom on CD. By the way seems to me rather better than Cyrano the much earlier opera Resurrezione).
#55
F.F. (1911-1985) was an ill-fated, short-career conductor. An obscure illness no longer allowed him to conduct public concerts. He kept on teaching conducting and composing-conducting movie scores (his own or other composers'). He left few recordings (for instance the 3 sets of Respighi Ancient Airs and Dances). I knew nothing about his music (nor any of his movie scores attained fame).
Now Naxos presents first recordings of four orchestral works (not -at least not directly) for -or from- movies, from various periods: Preludio, Fantasia tragica, Notte di tempesta, Burlesca. They sound worthy, well written, decidedly late-romantic.
The Naxos booklet is hardly informative about the four works, concentrating instead on Ferrara' life.
In particular the booklet writes about,  but leaves obscure, the relationship between "Fantasia tragica" and the -earlier- third movement of Shostakovich Symphony n.13. It is rather clear that the Ferrara work was modelled on that Shostakovich movement. Remains obscure -in the Naxos booklet- if the movie score for "The condemned of Altona" (an unsuccesful, but rich international production of 1962, after a J.P.Sartre's drama) at the same time:
-was composed by F.Ferrara "a la manière de Shostakovich"
- contained passages from Shostakovich Sym.13, mov.3 (the Naxos booklet claims only this second fact)
I think that both things are true and that Ferrara's "Fantasia tragica" is a by-product by the score for the said movie.
May anybody clearify that?
(Naxos 8.572410. F.La Vecchia, Orch. Sinf. di Roma)
#56
Yesterday night I greeted Maestro Noseda after a concert in the fine lake resort of Stresa.
He said me, not confidentially, that he has recorded Casella Concerto for Orchestra op. 61 (1937).
It is a substantial work (unrecorded till now) lasting about twenty-five minutes.
The coupling or couplings (again by Casella) have not yet decided.
#57
I am the least titled to write about. But I understand that Germany (mostly) and Austria cultivated in XX century a realm of light symphonic music. I own just a few records and may quote the following names.
Eduard Kunnecke (German, 1885-1983) conducting his music on LP Telefunken 6.41906. Interesting for me the "Concerto Grosso in 5 movements for jazz-band and large orchestra" , recorded in 1938 with the Berliner P.O. (!). The remaining on the record are "pastiches" like "A biedermeier suite".(E.K. was also an opera composer and the first conductor ever to record a Haydn Symphony, n.94).
Fine also for me Nico Dostal (Austrian, 1895-1981), an operettta, songs and movie music composer.
A 1979 recording by Nico Dostal and the Berliner P.O. was re-released by CPO in 2002. Fine " Froelische spiel" and "Wiener Erinnerung". The CPO CD (shortly quoted by "Pengelli" in another thread) is -I suppose- the only CPO with the Berliner P.O.
Less impressive Ulrich Sommerlatte (German, 1914-2002). U.S. "Light symphonic music" on deceased Koch Schwann 3-1319-2.Fine at least the gershwinian "Metropolis". Sometimes the remaining a little coarse.
Last for me the Germans Ernst Fischer (1906-1975, suite "South of the Alpes") and Hans Bund (1898-1982, " Erinnerung an ein Ballerlebnis) both present on an old EMI Lp (the works have been recorded again in the CD era).
I am sure some friend in the forum will know much more and I hope some one will write. 
#58
I deem a plesant "find" the youthful Violin Concerto in A major (1903, Respighi aged 24) on Naxos 8.572332 (Laura Marzadori violin, S.Di Vittorio cond., NY Chamber orch. "O.Respighi").
The Concerto is unashamedly romantic (not really late-romantic) and very tuneful (albeit at "easy" level), more tuneful than many respighian works. Left unfinished in the scoring of the third and last movement, it has been there scored by the conductor (who, accordingly to the booklet, has also "enhanced" the scoring of movements 1 and 2).
The remaining is uneven.  The fine "Rossiniana" suite, seldom performed in concert, has been several times recorded (even by Beecham, Boult, Ansermet, Dorati), recently by Noseda and by Falletta (another Naxos). More ordinary the youthful "Aria" for strings and the "Suite for strings" (already recorded; the Aria is claimed to be a first recording: it is only as a "revision" by S.Di Vittorio).
#59
Composers & Music / Tikhon Khrennikov
Sunday 03 July 2011, 13:55
Today unsung, in the past not so (even in the West), T.K. appears to have been the politically more prominent of Soviet composers since 1948 and for decades (appointed personally by Stalin as Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers).
Unlikely to be mentioned or remembered as a "symphatetic guy", he appears however a not ungifted composer.
At least in the Symphony n.1 op.4 (1935, T.K. aged 22) he is not negligible (the work was premiered in US by Stokowsky in 1936).I have a "Monitor" LP recording by Gauk. Svetlanov recorded all three symphonies (not heard by me).
The Violin Concerto op.14 is rather tuneful (I have a LP recording with Kogan, Leningrad Phil. and K.Sanderling- remote "Joker " label. Other exists (even by Vengerov and Repin when -I suppose- T.K. power had faltered).
More ordinary for me (but playful) "Three songs for violin and orch. op.26 (I have a CD "Audiophile Classics" by Igor Oistrakh, cond. A.Katz). I don't know other works (he -with a lot of political charges- reached op.42).
About performances:
Oddly enough (at least for the first one) the First Symphony has been performed in Torino three times (not by Soviet visiting orchestras, but by the Torino Radio Orchestra).
The first , an absolute oddity, in wartime 1941, conducted by Willy Ferrero (a former child prodigy and a great conductor, himself worthy a digression), who evidently chose himself the work (and succeeded in conducting it in wartime).
The second in 1960 was conducted by Kirill Kondrashin (then aged 46). Maybe it was a "duty" for the great conductor (certainly not an "apparatus" man).
The third was conducted in 1974 by the young Mariss Jansons (born 1943) on the occasion of a three concert "Festival of Russian and Soviet Union in the frame of cultural exchanges between Italy and Soviet Union".
On that occasion Yuri Temirkanov conducted a (rather fine) Sviridov cantata . The rest was Sciostakovich (living), Tchaicovskj and Prokofiev.
Has anyone some to say/comment about T.K.?   
#60
Composers & Music / The Yellow River Concerto
Sunday 26 June 2011, 09:45
After the "Butterfly Lovers", what about "The Yellow River Concerto" (a 1939 choral cantata by one Xian Xinghai, later turned into a piano concerto by a "collective group" of composers?.
Kitsch or entertaining music in blended style? For me both.
Personally I would reflect that it is not so unsung, as I attended two actual performances by two Chinese orchestras (for them it was a visiting card to West. The second time, just a few years ago, the soloist was Yundi Li, now Yundi).
I would add a marketing curiosity. I bought the Decca LP  recording with Ilana Vered and Elgar Howarth (maybe the only one completely western recording); in the reissue I own, it was coupled to Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody 18th Variation, Addinsell Warsaw Concerto and Bath Cornish Rhapsody (all. arranged), these played by Rawicz and Landauer with Mantovani and his orchestra. (Decca Viva series).