Damian Iorio - 20th Century Italian Orchestral Music

Information

Composer: Alfredo Casella; Franco Donatoni; Giorgio Federico Ghedini; Gian Francesco Malipiero

• (01-10) Casella - Divertimento per Fulvia, Op. 64
• (11-14) Donatoni - Musica per orchestra da camera
• (15-19) Ghedini - Concerto grosso in F major
• (20-22) Malipiero - Oriente immaginario

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana
Damian Iorio, conductor

Date: 2016
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573748

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

This is such an attractive programme that it’s hard to credit that three of the works here are receiving their first recording. Damian Iorio and his Swiss orchestra give lively performances of four bright, broadly neoclassical orchestral suites by mid-20th-century Italian composers whom many listeners will know principally by name, if at all.

And hands up: until now I knew Giorgio Ghedini only as Berio’s teacher. His Concerto grosso sets the general tone: brisk, zesty music driven by the twin impulses of song and dance, and scored in primary colours. If his ideas aren’t all terribly distinctive, there’s no problem on that score in the 10 smartly crafted miniature movements of Casella’s ballet-derived Divertimento per Fulvia. It’s the only piece here to have been recorded before but Iorio’s account holds up well against Alun Francis on CPO. He maintains an invigorating momentum, and the OSI’s wind and brass have confidence by the bucketload.

I’d have liked a little more body to the string sound, but that’s only really a problem in the mock-exotic doodlings of Malipiero’s Oriente immaginario, which its composer disowned. In Franco Donatoni’s Musica it actually helps bring out the vivid wind and percussion colours of this youthful exercise in 12-note composition – imagine a riper, more sun-kissed Webern. Donatoni apparently described it as ‘my worst piece’, though David Gallagher’s fascinating booklet-notes gamely insist otherwise. Decide for yourself. Iorio and his players find in it the same buoyancy and lyricism as they do in each of the works on this intriguing and entertaining disc.

-- Richard Bratby, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Jan/Casella_Fulvia_8573748.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Mar/Casella_Fulvia_8573748.htm
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.573748&languageid=EN
https://www.amazon.com/Casella-Ghedini-Donatoni-Malipiero-Orchestral/dp/B01MQQ4CI9

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alfredo Casella (25 July 1883 in Turin – 5 March 1947 in Rome) was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor. He entered the Paris Conservatoiry in 1896 to study piano under Louis Diémer and composition under Gabriel Fauré. In this period, Casella developed a deep admiration for Debussy's output, but pursued a more romantic vein in his own writing. His work on Italian Baroque composers put him at the centre of the early 20th Century Neoclassical revival and also deeply influenced his own compositions. The resurrection of Vivaldi's works in the 20th century is mostly thanks to the efforts of Casella.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Casella

***

Giorgio Federico Ghedini (11 July 1892 in Cuneo – 25 March 1965 in Nervi) was an Italian composer. He studied organ, piano and composition in Turin, then graduated in composition from the Bologna Conservatory under Marco Enrico Bossi in 1911. He worked as conductor for a certain time, then he gave up to devote himself to teaching. Among his pupils, the most eminent were Marcello and Claudio Abbado, Luciano Berio and Guido Cantelli. As a composer, He wrote a large number of chamber, vocal and choral works. He also wrote a one-act opera based on Melville's novella Billy Budd, which was first performed in 1949.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Federico_Ghedini

***

Gian Francesco Malipiero (18 March 1882 – 1 August 1973) was an Italian composer, musicologist, music teacher and editor. Malipiero studied mostly with Marco Enrico Bossi. In 1913, Malipiero moved to Paris, where he attended the première of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, and after that, repudiated almost all the compositions he had written up to that time. Malipiero had an ambivalent attitude towards the Austro-German musical tradition, and was strongly critical of sonata form. His orchestral works include seventeen compositions he called symphonies, of which however only eleven are numbered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gian_Francesco_Malipiero

***

The London-born, Italy-based conductor Damian Iorio was raised in a distinguished family of Italian and English musicians. After studies in the UK and USA, he started his musical career as a violinist and during this time studied conducting in St Petersburg. He has worked with an impressive list of orchestras and opera companies, including many Italian opera houses. His interest in the creation of new music has led him to conduct several premières, collaborating closely with composers such as Tan Dun and Michael Nyman. He is currently Music Director of the Milton Keynes City Orchestra (since 2014).
https://www.naxos.com/person/Damian_Iorio/157417.htm
http://www.damianiorio.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!