Casella: Triple Concerto; Ghedini: Concerto dell'Albatro

“Ghedini’s colours are so tastefully blended and applied that I found myself listening for a second time, and a third...Casella fans will want this concerto; the Ghedini is a real bonus, though.” --MusicWeb International, 9th January 2014

“a pair of radically different mid-century triple concertos...I Pomeriggi Musicali's fine live performances are scrupulously conducted by Damian Iorio... Violinist Paolo Ghidoni and cellist Pietro Bosna adopt a lyrical approach, in contrast to the more overtly virtuosic playing from pianist Emanuela Piemonti.” --The Guardian, 21st November 2013 ****

Both Alfredo Casella and Giorgio Federico Ghedini are featured in ongoing Naxos series of orchestral works, but this is the first release to couple the two of them. The pieces have much in common—not least, both are concertos using the rare combination of piano trio and orchestra, pioneered by Beethoven—but they are also beautifully contrasted. Casella wrote his Triple Concerto for his own Trio Italiano, who performed it five hundred times on three continents in less than a decade. Ghedini’s Concerto dell’albatro adds the voice of a narrator to the piano trio and orchestra, evoking, in words from Herman Melville’s sea story Moby-Dick, a remarkable encounter with an Antarctic albatross.

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Casella: Symphony No. 2

“Francesco La Vecchia directs the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma in a committed and colourful performance, relishing these moments of darkness, but they are equally good in the rampant spikiness of much of the Concerto...Unreserved applause for Naxos and for La Vecchia and his orchestra.” --International Record Review, October 2010

“One of Casella's subtlest creations, it receives a fine performance from the Rome Symphony Orchestra and Francesco La Vecchia” --Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2010

From the very first notes, with their tolling bells, Casella’s Symphony No. 2 is deeply indebted to its model, Mahler’s own Symphony No. 2, whose Parisian première was championed by Casella during his years in the French capital.

A notte alta (‘In deepest night’), which Casella described as ‘the only piece of programme music I have ever composed… inspired by emotional events in my personal life’ (Casella’s love for his Parisian student Yvonne Müller), is a work of intimate self-revelation and sombre meditation on ‘the utter indifference of Nature to human passions’.

Casella’s Symphony No. 1 is available on Naxos 8572413.

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Casella: Symphony No. 1, Etc

“The performances here are excellent. Francesco La Vecchia drives the orchestra hard in the symphony, with a big payoff in terms of emotional spontaneity and impact…This boldly engineered disc is the first of four surveying Casella's orchestral music. Recommended, without reservations.” --Classics Today, December 2010

“Casella’s Symphony 1 (1905) shows…striking dramatic effects. II is strongly constructed, and it is music of serious emotional fervor with long, sustained melodies. III builds to the main event with…highly effective sul ponticello string passages. The ensuing main theme is one of his most noble inspirations. After a flamboyant development, the music ends in a quiet elegy over bell-like harmonies.” --American Record Guide, November 2010

This first of four recordings of Alfredo Casella’s orchestral music couples his first and last purely orchestral works. Completed the day before his 23rd birthday, the Symphony No. 1, which here receives it world première recording, exudes a self-confidence few composers could match at such an age. Although it abounds in echoes of other music, at its best—above all in the beautiful central slow movement—the Symphony has a truly distinctive identity: Casella’s fondness for dark, even crepuscular sonorities can be heard in the sometimes stunningly imaginative orchestration. After that, the driving motoric rhythms and astringent harmonies and timbres of the Concerto, Op. 69 erupt like the work of a different man entirely.

Album Reviews

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Casella: Orchestral Works Volume 3

“The BBC Philharmonic is an outstanding orchestra who maintain excellent form throughout. Their playing of these multicoloured works is ideal. I love the way they can easily generate thrusting intensity then seamlessly shift to episodes of tender serenity. Noseda’s stunning interpretation of the Symphony makes a splendid case for this marvellous work” MusicWeb International, 15th July 2013
 

“This is attractive music and the BBC Philharmonic under Noseda are strong advocates.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2013 ****

Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - August 2013

“Noseda encourages the BBC Philharmonic to give of their considerable best throughout) the exuberant yet marvellously controlled orchestral playing towards the close of Italia really does raise the roof)...A very strong recommendation.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2013

“The performances are exceptional: even by their own standards, Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic have done nothing finer.” The Guardian, 13th June 2013 *****

“Those who have been following Noseda’s Casella series will be keen to add this disc to the collection...There is a whole spectrum of influences at work on Casella, but they are subsumed into a personal, dynamic style that the BBC Philharmonic conveys with sinew and spirit.” The Telegraph, 20th June 2013 ****

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Casella: La donna serpente

"This disc marks the conclusion of Naxos’ Casella series, and it has been a wonderful journey. As with the other discs, the performances are excellent. Sun Hee You does a wonderful job in the Partita, offering effortless virtuosity and an aptly light touch…conductor Franceso La Vecchia proves himself more imaginative an accompanist…and he also has the better orchestra and engineering. Casella truly was a great composer. The evidence on this disc is incontestable." --ClassicsToday.com, November 2012

Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma, Francesco La Vecchia

This latest disc in the Naxos series of Casella’s orchestral music represents what Casella felt was his ‘definitive personality’. The Introduction, Aria and Toccata epitomises his ‘monumental Baroque style’ of the late 1920s and early 1930s. A few years earlier, his neoclassical Partita for piano and small orchestra had been a huge hit, with Casella himself touring right across Europe and the USA playing the solo part. In between, he at last – in his late forties – composed his first opera, La donna serpente: the orchestral fragments recorded here colourfully reflect the story’s tragicomic twists and turns.

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