Piano Rarities: Luigi Dallapiccola
Pietro Masa, piano. Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchestra, Berlin conducted by Peter Hirsch
Capriccio 5045
Total Time: 74:32
Recording: ****/****
Performance: ****/****
Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) was one of the important transitional Italian composers of the 20th century. His work brought that Italianate sense of melodic writing and colorful orchestration that warmed his use of twelve-tone composition quite amazingly. The works on this disc span the decade in which Dallapiccola began to modify his compositional approach toward more twelve-tone models but do not let that scare you away from this disc. The pieces here are arranged mostly chronologically allowing you to hear the gradual adaptation of the technique within Dallapiccola’s developing musical language. There are three solo piano works of gradually growing serial technique bookended by a delightfully modern piano concerto and an orchestral work.
The opening piece, the Piccola Concerto per Muriel Couvreux, dates from 1939-1941. Musically, this could be considered part of a “Neo-Baroque” movement, often overlooked by musicologists, where counterpoint and older understandings of form and title designations give us a clue to the music itself. Such is the case here in this work of six movements each rather brief. Gorgeous lyrical writing is part and parcel of this work that tends to still evolve much like a Baroque line would but harmonic ideas tend toward the more modernistic. The piano at times is reminiscent more of Milhaud and post- Les Six, not as acerbic as American modernism and without any jazz inflections. The simplicity and clarity of the scoring here is due in part to its dedication to the seven-year old girl in its title. The work is a decided little gem from the period and quite accessible. It is quite well-performed by Pietro Massa who somehow manages to find the proper balance between the harsh chordal clusters that gradually begin to take over and the lyrical passages that make up much of this piece. Among many highlights is the almost Impressionistic fifth movement, “Notturno” which has an almost mystical quality to it.
The sense of modernism and the Baroque also comes to the forefront in the final work on this disc, the Pieces for Orchestra. The opening “Sarabande” is a denser orchestral piece with that blend of lyric writing and more experimental atonal writing that further explores fascinating orchestral textures as well. It is this colorful writing that draws the listener in emotionally. The second piece is a “Fanfare and Fugue” that grows in intensity. The performance is given a clear recorded presence that feels well-shaped by Hirsch who manages to create just the right balance between what feels like music veering out of control.
It is no surprise that the Second Viennese School worked out their technique in keyboard music, as Bach had worked out the “new” chromaticism of his time in the same place. Coming to these atonal works with that sense of mathematical, theoretical understanding might gain an appreciation of what composers who followed in the wake of Schoenberg were trying to accomplish by further liberating chromaticism. For Dallapiccola, regardless of his harmonic palette, there is always a sense of drama that often appears to overcome his tone rows. There should be little surprise then that for his Sonata canonica in Eb (composed between 1942-43) he would apply contrapuntal technique to Paganini’s Caprice No. 14. The piece was intended for an anthology of piano music by contemporary Italian composers and is another rediscovered jewel of a piece. Each of these four difficult movements sees the composer experimenting with canon and chromatic writing extending an approach followed by the previous century’s virtuosi, especially Liszt’s own Paganini adaptations. The opening “Allegretto comodo’s” slow musing could easily be a late-night popular music musing with it’s clear harmonies which soon move into a faster paced section. The tenderness of the “Andante sostenuto” is equally gorgeous. The final movement has an almost post-Beethoven piano sound.
The following work, 3 Episodes from the Ballet ‘Marsia’ (1949-1950) is based on ideas Dallapiccola used for his earlier ballet. Here is a more complex piano work that features a variety of dense textures and full exploration of the piano. In some respects, the work feels like an extension of Debussy’s Preludes with the first movement feeling a bit like The Sunken Cathedral. Dallapiccola explores both open harmonic ideas and very closely-packed intervals that lend this work a far more serious nature. Massa’s performance here is a committed one.
By 1952, the year of the Music Booklet for Annalibera, Dallapiccola had firmly undertaken serialism and this work, dedicated to his daughter, allows for us to hear how that stricter compositional parameter impacted the sound of his music after hearing the previous two works on this disc. One sees the Baroque nod to Bach in the title but Dallapiccola also employs that composer’s name as both melodic and harmonic musical materials in this eleven-movement piece which features other longer arching structural connections as well in these piano miniatures. Massa again manages to find ways to give this music an almost improvisational sense when it is needed balanced with the clarity of textures necessary for the more complicated segments of the music here.
Why is Dallapiccola’s music less known outside of Italy, or even Europe? The answer may just lie in his ability to create accessible music that maintains often gorgeous lyrical “melodies” even when veering into atonal realms. There was very little tolerance for non-strict, harsh-sounding music by academia and such tunnel vision too easily dismissed composer’s like Dallapiccola who created music that has fascinating textures coupled with an emotional heart that somehow went missing from much academic music by the 1940s. The other reason though is that Italy was a bit late in terms of composer’s adoption of this technique coupled with its rise during WWII and Italian fascism. These should not be deterrents to picking up this well-recorded disc that allows for a quick introduction to this composer’s music.
Capriccio’s release is a fabulous way to hear the work of this lesser known 20th century Italian master. Once one enters Dallapiccola’s sound world in this presentation, even the harsher serial music does not feel like an affront to the ears. This has a lot to do with Massa’s interpretations of these pieces but also the gradual stretching that naturally happens as the disc plays out. More importantly, this appears to be the only available recording of the Piccolo Concerto with the other piano pieces on harder to find labels.
The only complaint is that the release is served poorly by badly translated English notes that make for far more frustrating reading than the music it intends to describe. You will be fine if your German is up to par but the English notes appear to have been translated from Italian and feature poor sentence structure and grammar.
These things aside, this is well worth your effort if you are a fan of 20th century music.
Recent Comments