Gian Francesco Malipiero: Fantasie di Ogni Giorno (Fantasies of Every Day) (1953), Piano Concerto No. 3 (Benjamin Owen, piano) (1948), Notturno di Canti e Balli (Nocturne of Songs and Dances) (1957). The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney. First Edition Music FECD-0036 (2005) barcode 809157003625
Fantasie recorded XII.54, Concerto recorded I.60, both Columbia Auditorium, Louisville. Notturno recorded 10.V.66, Macauley Theatre, Louisville
Mildly 20th-Century modern, not very distinctive
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 9 November 2007
Though well represented on CD, Gian Francesco Malipiero is hardly viewed as one of the most prominent 20th Century composers nowadays, and it is hard to think that, in the first 50 years of the last century (well – make it 40), he was considered as one of the leading figures of the modern music scene, along with his compatriot Alfredo Casella. How fast reputations wane!
This disc collates three Louisville premiere recordings, including two Louisville commissions: the 1948 Piano Concerto and the 1953 “Fantasies of Every Day”. The “Nocturne of Songs and Dances” dates from 1957. The recordings date respectively from 1960 (Louisville still stuck to mono in those days), 1954 and stereo 1966. Other than a short left-channel drop out in the piano concerto (at 2:24), the sound is good for its respective vintage, and the mono recordings are not marred by the metallic fluttering that affects some other First Edition Louisville remasterings (see, for example, my reviews of FECD-0013 and my comments about Peter Mennin’s Cello Concerto, or FECD-0015 and Alberto Ginastera’s Ollantay, FECD-0014 Lou Harrison, FECD-0007 Wallingford Riegger, and there are a few more – links will open new tab to my review).
There is nothing very modern in these compositions, and nothing very distinctive either. The music is mildly 20th-Century modern, agreeable to ear and easy listening in its cinematographic expressivity, in turn muscular, dramatic and lyrical, even subtle at times in its orchestration (try the string dialogue at 9:35 into the Fantasie) but with not much that really sets it apart and sticks in memory. It brings to mind the music of Honegger, but there is more distinctive personality in the Swiss-French composer. The Piano Concerto is a light and sunny work in its first movement, with many French neo-classical traits, more muscular-dramatic in the last, and it has a superb, intensely brooding middle movement in the form of a kind of funeral lament. The Concerto would indeed do a good companion piece to Honegger’s Concertino for Piano. Echoes of Honegger again can be heard in the Notturno, and especially of the 2nd Symphony for Strings and Trumpet. It is in the form of a quasi-symphony, with four contrasting movements in a slow-fast-slow-fast shape. In this piece the Louisville Strings don’t always sound as if they’re playing cleanly on the same pitch.
TT is a shortish 49:00, but that is all the Malipiero from Louisville First Edition Music had in its catalog. There is a good general presentation by David Prince, but the notes to the individual works are those from the original LPs and they are not extremely informative.
There are better introductions to the art of Maliperio, I think: his string quartets (I have them by the Orpheus String Quartet on ASV CD DCD 457 barcode 5011975045700, and they have been reissued on Brilliant Classics 8850 barcode 5029365855020) or his symphonies recorded by Antonio Almeida on Marco Polo, see my reviews (links will open new tabs):
8.223602 Symphonies Nos. 3 “delle campane” & 4 “In Memoriam”, Sinfonia del mare (1993) barcode 4891030236028, reissue 2016 730099360227, reissue Naxos 8.570878 (2008) 747313087877
8.223603 Symphony No. 1 “in quattro tempi, come le quattro stagioni” & 2 “elegiaca”, Sinfonia del silenzio e de la morte (1993) 4891030236035, reissue 2016 730099360326, reissue Naxos 8.570879 (2009) 747313087976
8.223604 Symphony No. 7 “delle canzoni”, Sinfonia in un tempo, Sinfonia per Antigenida (1993) 4891030236042, reissue 730099360425, reissue Naxos 8.570881 (2009) 747313088171
8.223696 Symphonies No. 5 “Concertante in Eco”, No. 6 “Degli Archi”, No. 8 “Symphonia Brevis”, No. 11 “Della Cornamuse” (1994) 730099369626, reissue Naxos 8.570880 (2009) 747313088072
8.223697 Symphonies No. 9 “dell’ahimè”, No. 10 “Atropo”, Sinfonia dello Zodiaco (1994) 730099369725, reissue Naxos 8.570882 (2010) 747313088270