Elisabetta Brusa - Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 (Fabio Mastrangelo)

Information

Composer: Elisabetta Brusa

• Firelights
• Adagio
• Wedding Song
• Requiescat
• Suite Grotesque
• Favole

National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine

Fabio Mastrangelo, conductor

Date: 2002

Label: Naxos

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

Review

The promise of the first CD in the Naxos series of the music of the Milanese composer Elisabetta Brusa (10/02) is more than borne out in the second. The chimerical opening scherzo, Firelights, glittering with orchestral colour, yet with a lyrical underlay and a fine climax, is characteristic, but the extraordinary eloquence of the following 16-minute Adagio is very arresting indeed. This richly compelling slow movement would not disgrace any major 20th-century symphony; the lovely rhapsodic Wedding Song (‘an ode to the inner and outward joy of love and marriage’) which follows is memorable in a luminously romantic way, without being in the least sentimental.

The yearning Requiescat for large orchestra (‘a freely structured musical prayer in a single movement’) is in some ways even more ambitious than the independent Adagio. Richly contoured and passionate, it is dedicated to the composer’s mentor, Hans Keller, and ends with a soaring solo soprano voice – a surprise, as she is not mentioned in the composer’s notes – adding to the ecstatic celebration of the coda.

The Suite Grotesque might be regarded as a sinfonietta with its slightly bizarre opening Scherzo (how well Brusa writes for the horns), a darkly foreboding slow movement, a gentler but still sombre Andante, and a strong, vigorous finale which gathers together the themes of the preceding movements ‘in quadruple counterpoint’ to reach a very positive conclusion.

Favole again demonstrates Brusa’s orchestral skill: where possible, she uses the same instrumentation in her portrayals as Prokofiev in Peter and the Wolf, so the listener has no trouble in identifying the characters. Most appealing of the fables is Hans Andersen’s ‘The Real Nightingale and the Mechanical One’, while the same writer’s ‘Ugly Duckling’ is sadly and piquantly portrayed. Most picaresque and charming is La Fontaine’s ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ (a saxophone). But ‘The Philosophical Fly’ (Aesop) meets his end spectacularly and Perrault’s ‘Puss in Boots’ is given a jolly royal march, with the cat’s tune particularly winning.

First class performances, and a splendidly vivid recording with (again) the only real reservation being the unflattering sound of the Ukrainian upper strings. But this is a collection not to be missed at the Naxos price.

— Ivan March

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

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.

***

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.

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