Elisabetta Brusa - Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 (Fabio Mastrangelo)

Information

Composer: Elisabetta Brusa

• Florestan
• Messidor
• La Triade
• Nittemero Symphony
• Fanfare

National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine

Fabio Mastrangelo, conductor

Date: 2002

Label: Naxos

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Review

Elisabetta Brusa is a new name to me, as I expect she is to most readers. Born in Milan, she began her career there at the Conservatoire, going on to work at Dartington and Tanglewood, later studying with Hans Keller in London. Her photograph shows her with a nice welcoming smile, and although she writes ‘neo-tonally’ her melodic lines are firmly placed and one always senses a key centre.

In her own booklet notes, Brusa describes Florestan (1997) as an elliptical ‘portrait’ based on Schumann’s imaginary character. It opens passionately and melodramatically with strings and horns, but it is the atmospherically lyrical central section that is the most memorable, before the uninhibitedly powerful close. A complete contrast comes with Messidor, an engaging orchestral fantasy inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream, most gracefully scored, with a jauntily delicate, and catchy, main theme that reminds one of early Delius, though dissonance gathers in the coda.

After a sinisterly atmospheric opening, ‘rain pours down incessantly’ in La Triade (1994), an orchestral ‘curtain of water’ inspired both by an Aesop fable (with a fox and snake the central characters), and Leonardo da Vinci’s description of The Deluge. Brusa creates an impressively drenched orchestral canvas in depicting the flooded river and the pair of marooned animals, the orchestration torrentially spectacular at the climax, with the work ending peacefully.

The Nittemero (‘Night and Day’) Symphony (1985-88) is economically scored for 14 players, yet one does not sense a small group. The writing is attractively unpredictable, and again the ear is immediately struck by the composer’s vivid orchestral colouring. The three-movement work is cyclic, depicting the 24 hours, from midday to midday, with an opening Rondo, a busy ‘Afternoon’ both rhythmic and lyrical, with some striking writing for the solo trumpet, followed by a Largo (a simmering, passionate nocturnal, with an exotic background, that recalls Villa-Lobos); sonata form is reserved for the cheerful following morning, where the brass come into their own, to say nothing of a neo-romantic solo violin cadenza. The work ends very positively as does the Adams-like ‘Fanfare’, which brings an up-beat close to the programme.

The performances here are vibrant and committed and generally well recorded, except that the sound is not flattering to the Ukrainian violins, which sound thin in their upper range. But this is a promising début, and worth trying at Naxos price.

— Ivan March

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Elisabetta Brusa (born 1954 in Milan) is an Italian-British composer. A graduate of the Milan Conservatory, she later studied in England with Peter Maxwell Davies and Hans Keller. She won First Prize at the 1982 Washington International Competition for Composition and received fellowships from the Fromm Music Foundation and the Fulbright Commission to study at Tanglewood. From 1988 to 1990, she was a resident at the MacDowell Colony, where she wrote her First Symphony. Brusa taught composition and orchestration at the Milan Conservatory (1985–2018). Naxos has released five volumes of her music.

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Fabio Mastrangelo (born 27 November 1965 in Bari) is an Italian conductor and pianist. He graduated from the "Niccolò Piccinni" Conservatory, later earning diplomas from the Geneva Conservatory and London's Royal Academy of Music. After early successes, he turned to conducting, studying with Leonard Bernstein and Karl Österreicher among others. He founded the chamber orchestra Virtuosi di Toronto and collaborated with major artists and orchestras worldwide. Active as both conductor and pianist, he has led ensembles across Europe and North America and achieved notable acclaim in St. Petersburg's musical scene.

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