A belated thank you for your support, Antonio.

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Mario Pilati; Achille Longo - Piano Quintets (Circolo Artistico Ensemble; Aldo Ciccolini)


Information

Composer: Mario Pilati; Achille Longo
  • (01) Pilati - Piano Quintet in D major
  • (04) Longo - Piano Quintet

Circolo Artistico Ensemble
Giuseppe Carotenuto, violin
Nicola Marino, violin
Giuseppe Navelli, viola
Manuela Albano, cello
Dario Candela, piano (1-3)
&
Aldo Ciccolini, piano (4-6)

Date: 2011
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572628

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Review

We are getting a benign jolt of discoveries of Italian classical music these days. Much of the material is worthy of our ear-time. It wasn’t so long ago that I was waxing euphoric about the Alfano Violin Sonata and Piano Quintet (8.572753) and the reissued Pizzetti String Quartets (8.570876). Now we hear from Pilati and Longo.

You may know Pilati from the Naxos orchestral CD (8.570873) or its earlier Marco Polo avatar (8.225156). Then again there’s the Adriano Inedita disc (PI2757). Longo was quite unknown to me and to MWI - not even as one of the teachers of Aldo Ciccolini. Both composers were born in Naples. Both these inter-war three-movement piano quintets are tonal and tuneful.

Pilati shows his true sweet colours in the first movement at 5.38 with a sunny sentimental melody of ecstatic pulse and contour. This is projected over a discreetly pecked piano and lower strings note-cell. One can feel the morning sun on the nape of the neck. This develops into urgently struggling vitality before ecstatically slipping into lyric enchantment. An elfin quiet violin ostinato points up a long and sultry melody of euphonious contentment. The middle Vivacissimo has the expected rushing and persistent episodes but surrenders to an almost bluesy relaxation (3:55). The final Animato is fast and furious. It has an Iberian twist which sometimes coasts close to Nights in the Gardens of Spain. In passing I noticed a bumpy edit at 1.37 in the finale. The work ends in a fruitily passionate and triumphant emotional cauldron. Very satisfying.

Longo's piano quintet is shorter than the Pilati. It too is a work of riptide passions and wild sunrises and sunsets. Its lyrical address places Longo in the vicinity of the chamber music of Vierne, Ropartz, d'Ollonne, Cras and early Koechlin. The slow contentment of the Largo contrasts with the triumphantly pummelling vaudeville happiness of the finale. It is poignant that the pianist in the Longo is Ciccolini, the composer’s pupil.

Good to see notes by Adriano for Pilati alongside those by Sandro Cappelletto. Longo's scene-setter is shared between Stefano Valanzuolo and the yeoman work of Keith Anderson.

Another pair of discoveries. Again thanks to Naxos for resisting the temptation to present each quintet with something more familiar. There we have it: no compromise at a price that is affordable.

-- Rob BarnettMusicWeb International

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Mario Pilati (2 June 1903 – 10 December 1938) was an Italian composer. He was born in Naples and entered the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella at the age of fifteen, studying under Antonio Savasta. Pilati worked as a teacher and music critic in Milan and Palermo, before returning to Naples in 1938, where he became ill and died just before the outbreak of World War II. His output is considerable given his few years of compositional maturity. It includes a Concerto for Orchestra (1932), premiered by Dmitri Mitropoulos, a Suite for Strings and Piano (1925) and several chamber works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Pilati

***

Aldo Ciccolini (15 August 1925, Naples – 1 February 2015, Paris) was an Italian-French pianist. In 1949, he won the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris. He became a French citizen in 1969 and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1970-88, where his students included Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Artur Pizarro and Nicholas Angelich. Ciccolini was a celebrated interpreter and advocate of the piano music of the French composers, and was also known for his having played the music of the Spanish composer. He made more than a hundred recordings for EMI-Pathé Marconi and other record companies.

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