Modern Italian Instrumental Music

[nut-job]

Sad that Italy where, it can be argued, instrumental "classical" music originated with such composers as Corelli, Albinoni and others has become so irrelevant in the field.  Instead, the country is associated with sappy opera performed by morbidly obese tenors who can't make it across the stage without a piece of furniture to lean on.  Perhaps most disappointing is the fact that the music written by genuinely interesting Italian composers of instrumental music receives such scant attention, even in their own country.  Major works by Casella, Malpiero and others are not available on CD at all.  The subject was suggested to me when I stumbled on an LP of Goffredo Petrassi's Concerto for Orchestra, recorded by Previtali with Santa Cecelia (and old "London STS").  The orchestra has trouble coping with it, but at least play with style.  Of course this recording has never been released on CD (as far as I could determine).  The music has only recently received a modern recording (by a Dutch orchestra).  To repeat myself, just sad.

[some guy]

"Has become"?

I don't suppose that Italian music has been irrelevant since Russolo. So 1913.

And there's a few recordings here and there of some folk like Maderna and Berio and Scelsi and Nono and Sciarrino and Scodanibbio and Marchetti (Walter).

Just to name a few.

You might keep an eye out for the Stradivarius label, whose "times future" series consists largely of recent Italian instrumental music.

Italy's been pretty prominent in electroacoustic music, too, as well as the usual other suspects, experimental, installation, laptop.

[nut-job]

"Has become"?

I don't suppose that Italian music has been irrelevant since Russolo. So 1913.

And there's a few recordings here and there of some folk like Maderna and Berio and Scelsi and Nono and Sciarrino and Scodanibbio and Marchetti (Walter).

Just to name a few.

You might keep an eye out for the Stradivarius label, whose "times future" series consists largely of recent Italian instrumental music.

Italy's been pretty prominent in electroacoustic music, too, as well as the usual other suspects, experimental, installation, laptop.

Certainly Berio and Nono have come closest to impressing themselves on the public's imagination (although neither are favorites of mine).  But as in informal measure of recognition, none of the composers you mention have their names on Arkivmusic's composer page.  Only Berio and Nono among them appear if you click their initials on the composer page, the rest are buried in the weeds.  I don't argue that there are no interesting Italian composers, just that they don't get support in their native land (or elsewhere).  It contrasts with British composers, who are buoyed by a home-grown record industry which seems to be dedicated to publicizing obscure British composers.

[snyprrr]

...starting with Busoni...

Pizzetti
Respighi
Malipiero
Casella
Rota

and Ghedini is very rare

don't forget Piston, Mennin, Persichetti...

then Dallapiccola and Petrassi.

however, i must say, after berio/maderna, i seem to love all Italian avant garde. Donatoni especially has such a "joyous" sound. and Castiglioni is very rare to find on cd, but his output is crystalline and aldo Clementi...the italian Feldman?

Ivan Fedele appears to be heading the pack in the youngest ?, generation with Solbiati, Francesconi, Nova, Scodanbibbio, Maggi.

[some guy]

Piston? You mean the guy born in Rockland, Maine?

Maybe his grandfather, Pistone, but that would be like me saying I was Dutch because my grandfather was from Amsterdam.

And Mennin, even if his name started out as Mennini, can hardly be called an Italian composer. Same for Persichetti. There are enough Italian composers to consider without throwing in a handful of Americans, hein?

Like Sciarrino...

[snyprrr]

i was saving sciarrino, heehee
there's a great sciarrino cd on arion label of chamber works.

i like his mixed ensemble pieces...actually sciarrino is probably my favorite living composer right now, but i do tend to stick to strings and mixed ens.

check out the arditti str qrt/from italy for a great cross section of comps.

also, sciarrino's harpsicord piece is stupefying. i like how he has a completely different approach to the piano from his treatment of other instruments.

but i do think there could be rewards if one listened for traces of italianisms in the dna of italian/american composers of the first generation, piston's 4th and 6th syms. ARE very sunny after all, haha. that's why i count them also. i know it gets hairy- are martinu's symphonies american or czech?, is bloch swiss, jewish, or american (he certainly had different phases)?- but i see your point.

i am curious about the pizzetti string qrt No.2. anyone heard it?

[some guy]

i was saving sciarrino, heehee

Bastard!! (OK, you win this round....)

there's a great sciarrino cd on arion label of chamber works.

Not one I even knew about. I'm in your debt now.

check out the arditti str qrt/from italy for a great cross section of comps.

Indeed!! Plus the Push Pull CD on Hat Art if you like accordion (and who doesn't?). That has Globokar and Hosokawa and Pagh-Paan and Riehm as well as Sciarrino. (Those other gentlemen are not Italian, by the way. Why, Pagh-Paan isn't even a gentleman.)

i am curious about the pizzetti string qrt No.2. anyone heard it?

Now I am, too. (And it's only 10.02 on Amazon.)

[snyprrr]

you'll have to check the arion website for the sciarrino. i saw it by acident...but i think it is the best overall chamber cd. it has the piano qnt, cl. qnt. two wind qnts, string trio, str. duo, and i think one sextet. i think almost all of sciarrino's string music is now available, except for maybe the solo cello piece. i think there's also a brand new 2-cd set of orchestral works on stradivarius.

i hear that sciarrino and lachenmann don't get along.
i hear that rihm and lachenmann don't get along.

oh, i thought of a terrible joke using nono, lachenmann, rihm.....ugh, haha....

there is a great disc of string quartets by nono and lachenmann by the diotima qrt...so good i traded in the arditti!!! it is a good day when they can be given a run for their money. witness kurtag/keller.

[San Antone]

Camillo Togni : the unknown dodecaphonist



In 1938 Togni was introduced to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, which affected him profoundly and caused him to develop a tremendous interest in the Second Viennese School. During the war, he gained access to Schoenberg's scores through Luigi Rognoni, with whom he was studying. By 1940, Schoenberg's influence was clearly at work in Togni's Prima serenata for piano, and his new-found technique came to full flower in the Variazioni for piano and orchestra (1945–46), with which he made his compositional debut at the 1946 Venice Festival of Contemporary Music (Osmond-Smith 2001). In 1949, together with Luigi Dallapiccola and Bruno Maderna, he addressed the First International Dodecaphonic Congress in Milan. From 1951 to 1957 he attended the Ferienkurse in Darmstadt, but he found the turn toward aleatoricism there, beginning in 1957, alien to his nature, and did not return until he was invited back in 1990.