Saverio Mercadante - Orchestral Works (Francesco La Vecchia)

Information

Composer: Saverio Mercadante

1. Omaggio a Bellini
2. Sinfonia sulla 2a caratteristica napoletana
3. Sinfonia su motivi dello Stabat Mater di Rossini
4. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 101: I. Allegro maestoso
5. Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 101: II. Andante con variazoni
6. Garibaldi

Giammarco Casani, clarinet

Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma

Francesco La Vecchia, conductor

Date: 2013

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.573035

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Review

Provided that expectations are not pitched too high, there is much to enjoy here. Incorrigibly prolific, Saverio Mercadante bequeathed a legacy of some 60 operas, which history has largely eclipsed in favour of those by his contemporaries Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi. But Mercadante was an unusual Italian for his time in that he also composed a sizeable portfolio of instrumental works alongside his theatrical ones. The Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma has gathered together five of them, including a B flat major Clarinet Concerto, already designated Mercadante’s Op 101 but nevertheless, to judge from its style, probably dating to his very early years. Around 1815-20 would be a plausible guess, with shades of Mozart and Weber coalescing in a Classical-cum-early Romantic idiom. Mercadante knows the clarinet’s lyrical and athletic potential, testing the latter particularly in the spry variations of the second movement, which Giammarco Casani plays here with notable elegance and fluency.

As to the other four works, all of which reveal Mercadante’s operatic panache, there is little – formally speaking – to distinguish a ‘fantasia’ from a ‘gran sinfonia’ or a ‘sinfonia caratteristica’. They are all fantasies of one sort or another, with none of the norms or rigour of symphonic argument, but they colourfully tap popular musical seams of the day, be it Bellini’s Norma, Rossini’s Stabat mater or the Neapolitan tarantella. The playing has the requisite dramatic punch and vitality, with the full-blooded Garibaldi of 1871 providing a finale of invigorating nationalist pomp, passion and gusto.

-- Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/Jan14/Mercadante_orchestral_8573035.htm

https://www.naxos.com/Review/Detail/?catalogueid=8.573035&languageid=EN

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Saverio Mercadante (baptised 17 September 1795 – 17 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Donizetti or Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as prolific a number of works as either; and his development of structures, styles and orchestration contributed significantly to the foundations upon which Verdi built his dramatic technique. Throughout his life Mercadante generated more instrumental works than most of his contemporary composers of operas due to his lifelong preoccupation with orchestration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saverio_Mercadante

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Francesco La Vecchia (born September 10, 1954 in Rome) is an Italian classical conductor. La Vecchia's first instrument was the classical guitar. In 1972, he founded the Boccherini Quintet, and played hundreds of concerts with this ensemble in Europe, America and Asia. He began his career as conductor in 1982, and since then has conducted more than one hundred orchestras around the world. La Vecchia was named artistic and musical director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma in 2002. Specializing in Italian music, he has made dozens of recordings, mostly for the Naxos label.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_La_Vecchia

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