Goffredo Petrassi(1904-2003)

Started by Dundonnell, March 03, 2009, 06:13:40 PM

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Dundonnell

Guido started a thread about Luigi Dallapiccola-so i thought that I would start one about the other giant of the generation of Italian composers born just after the opening of the 20th century, Goffredo Petrassi.

I do so with some trepidation because I really don't know enough Petrassi to speak with any real certainty about his music and what I do know is not always to my own taste to be honest.

Petrassi lived to the ripe old age of 98 although he stopped composing as a consequence of failing eyesight in the mid 1980s. His music shows a very considerable development over his lifetime from the neo-classicism of the pre-World War Two music, heavily influenced by composers like Bartok, Hindemith and Stravinsky, to postwar serialism and finally an avant-garde style which brought him remarkably close to the Italian modernists(Maderna, Nono and Berio). This can be disconcerting for someone like me who admires the early work but has difficulty in appreciating the composer's later compositions. That is not a criticism of Petrassi however-nor is it a suggestion that he was jumping onto whichever musical bandwagon was passing through at the time :)

I do know the eight Concertos for Orchestra. Anyone who wants to follow Petrassi's development as a composer would be well served by buying the boxed set of these concertos. They do provide an excellent starting point in the study of the composer.

A work which I cannot recall hearing for a long time is the "Coro Dei Morti"-a seminal work from 1940-41 for male chorus, three pianos, brass, percussion and double bass: a sombre work which reflected Petrassi's gloom at Italy's entry into the Second World War. His "Noche Oscura" for chorus and orchestra(1950-51) is particularly impressive.

I have been listening to this Stradivarius disc but, while I can respond to the Ballet Suite "Ritratto di Don Chisciotte" and the rather beautiful very late Kyrie for chorus and strings, the 1960 Flute Concerto and the Poema for 48 solo strings and four trumpets(1977-80) I find difficult to grasp.

Petrassi was an extremely important and influential figure in Italian musical life for over half a century and a great teacher of composers as diverse as Franco Donatoni, Cornelius Cardew, Kenneth Leighton and Ennio Moricone.

Perhaps others are more familiar with his music?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/mar/05/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1

some guy

Those are the only two I have, too, the single disc and the concerti set.

Between us we like all the pieces. Petrassi just got better and better the older he got.

Dundonnell

I have this one in my collection too ;D

some guy

Lucky you! I'll look for that one, now.

And actually, I do have more Petrassi. I just recently bought a disc of Petrassi and Dallapiccola on Mode with various chamber works, played by the Ensemble Dissonanzen.

I have only listened to it once, and so have nothing yet to say about it.

(It's Mode 166, if anyone's interested. I'd put the cover up, too, but it's nowhere as nice to look at as your cover. Not worth the bother!.)

violinconcerto

Does anyone know of a recording of "Introduzione e Allegro" for violin and orchestra by Petrassi?

snyprrr

i have the OTHER stradivarius disc, with "veni creator igor" and....ummm, 4 pieces all together, and another strad. cd with his string quartet (which is...mmm,curmugeony bartok?).

the first disc is really swell, the 4 pieces highlighting some interesting instrumentation. i don't know if this cd is still available.

the one cd with the choral stuff (last post) is rewarding.

there was a cd with the flute concerto and some flute pieces on koch-swann, but i got rid of that for sommme reason, yea...a little angry.

pictures of petrassi don't dispell the meany image either.

i do wish i could get those concertos cheap though.

he also has a famous guitar piece, nunc dimitis, i believe, that shows up on a lot of recitals.

and elliot carter wrote him a solo violin piece!
so there

nut-job

I have this one.



Outrageous that it has not been reissued on CD (to my knowledge).


Dundonnell

I really don't get the impression that Petrassi was a "meany" ;D His many pupils testify to the very high regard in which he was held.

Regarding the Concertos for Orchestra-there are two complete sets. The older(and the one I have) is the Warner Fonit with Zoltan Pesko conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Hungarica and the Radio Orchestra of Milan. There is however a more modern version which is supposed to be better with the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Tamoya(Stradivarius).

some guy

The Mode disc I just got has Veni Creator Igor on it. And I've listened to it again, now. While two listens aren't enough for me to come up with anything useful to say, I did very much enjoy Veni, though I must say it didn't sound anything like Stravinsky!!

I'm always skeptical when I hear human emotions assigned to pieces of music. I can get angry, but a piece? Even for a piece to depict* anger, so that listening to it I can conclude that the sounds I'm hearing remind me of how I feel when angry.... No, that doesn't work, either.

I've heard music that has abrupt loud bits, that is vigorous (lots of notes, forceful), that has tight harmonies. That's the closest I can get to guessing what one could mean by calling a piece of music "angry." But it's just a guess. (And music like that doesn't seem angry to me, at all.)

*Does music really depict things?

karlhenning

It may perhaps suggest, but not depict . . . .

snyprrr

"ANGRY"....

i just noticed that as mid-century composers progressed after wwII, as they, apparently begrudgingly, attempted to include all the modernist tendencies (re-schoenberg), their style, almost as a group, got more knotty, thorny, "uncompromising" is a word overused...curmugeonly...i'm thinking of malipiero, hindemith's octet, krenek, chavez...many of the composers whose last works come in the sixties...maybe i'm not being clear, but...

the "meany" comment was just cheeky!

i just can't think of a great example right now, but if i KNEW that a composer had written a piece and had stated publicly that this piece contained "all my anger towards..mm..the "horrors of war"" (for instance), wouldn't this composer choose the "sounds" that represent (at least as best as the composer can "translate") the emotions that that composer is feeling?

i think, obvious to me, that stabbing, "violent" chords hammered one after another does seem to represent an "enough is enough" "stop this horror" kind of feeling. (though in schnittke it represents the number of heart attacks he had)

just as an up and down glissando just "sounds" like a siren.

but i can see exeptions...Simpson's sym. no.9 is relentless and tense, yet seems more related to natural phenomena (just as Xenakis' violence has no "human" element).

i'm thinking of a children's song...the kind you hear in horror movies...very nice and sweet and major key...and then the ominous low minor key bass notes take us somewhere else altogether. maybe that's not a good example.

i mean, wasn't "expressionism" all about emotions (usually all the bad ones)?

maybe i'm not making any sense...that could ALWAYS be an option!!!
this WOULD probably require a seperate thread, but there IS one on emotions/keys around here somewhere.

but i love music described as "dour" and "arid"....even "acrid",haha

Dax

Some Petrassi available for download from the Avant-garde Project.

http://www.avantgardeproject.org/AGP33/index.htm


snyprrr


snyprrr

I'd really like a little discussion about the 8 Concertos. Plesko seems totally unavailable, and Tamayo seems expensive.

Parsifal

Quote from: nut-job on March 06, 2009, 04:51:08 AM
I have this one.



Outrageous that it has not been reissued on CD (to my knowledge).

This is now available:


[asin]B00BDSRK38[/asin]

lescamil

Quote from: snyprrr on June 26, 2013, 01:35:18 PM
I'd really like a little discussion about the 8 Concertos. Plesko seems totally unavailable, and Tamayo seems expensive.

Don't waste your money on the Peskó. The performances are uneven and the sound is old. The Tamayo is worth every penny for the quality of the sound and the high quality of the performances. I haven't made my way through all 8 (only the first few), but I'd say that you should listen to them in order. The first is a Stravinsky lover's paradise, much like his Partita (but I personally like the first concerto more). It just gets gnarlier from there.
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springrite

I have the Pesko. While I have no other versions to compare to, I am fairly happy with it. Love those works! If a better performance is available, all the better!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

snyprrr

Quote from: Scarpia on June 26, 2013, 01:38:28 PM
This is now available:


[asin]B00BDSRK38[/asin]

That's what I'm talkin about!


Quote from: springrite on June 26, 2013, 06:53:50 PM
I have the Pesko. While I have no other versions to compare to, I am fairly happy with it. Love those works! If a better performance is available, all the better!

Quote from: lescamil on June 26, 2013, 06:31:25 PM
Don't waste your money on the Peskó. The performances are uneven and the sound is old. The Tamayo is worth every penny for the quality of the sound and the high quality of the performances. I haven't made my way through all 8 (only the first few), but I'd say that you should listen to them in order. The first is a Stravinsky lover's paradise, much like his Partita (but I personally like the first concerto more). It just gets gnarlier from there.

hmm... sounds like Tamayo! It was pretty expensive last I checked. :'(

Petrassi came be a bit gnarly at times!

snyprrr

SCOURING THE WEB... NOT A SIGN OF 8 CONCERTI/TAMAYO FOR UNDER $150-300!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lescamil

Quote from: snyprrr on June 29, 2013, 08:41:17 AM
SCOURING THE WEB... NOT A SIGN OF 8 CONCERTI/TAMAYO FOR UNDER $150-300!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just stream it from MOG.com for nothing. That's what I did.
Want to chat about classical music on IRC? Go to:

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