Goffredo Petrassi - Coro dei morti; Noche oscura; Quattro inni sacri; Partita (Gianandrea Noseda)

Information

Composer: Goffredo Petrassi

• Partita (for Orchestra)
• Quattro Inni Sacri (for Male Voice and Orchestra)
• Noche oscura (Cantata for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra)
• Coro di morti (Dramatic Madrigal for Male Voices, Three Pianos, Brass, Double-basses, and Percussion)

Giorgio Berrugi, tenor

Vasily Ladyuk, baritone

Coro & Orchestra of Teatro Regio

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Date: 2015

Label: Chandos

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Review

Following the 2013 release of Petrassi’s Magnificat and Salmo IX° (3/13), Gianandrea Noseda and the Orchestra e Coro Teatro Regio Torino turn their attention to more of Petrassi’s sacred music and also to the purely orchestral Partita of 1932, a tasty neo-classical sandwich with an intensely flavoured chaconne wrapped in two outer movements of rhythmic, textural and instrumental brilliance. This is fairly early Petrassi but it already reveals the strength of ideas and the command of structure that were to be prominent features of his later music. Noseda and the orchestra convey both the music’s élan and the manner in which Petrassi seems to take such pleasure in his skills, not in any studied way but with an exuberant confidence that manages to combine rigour with spontaneity.

With the solemnity and fervour of the Quattro Inni sacri Petrassi enters a different world. These Latin hymns were originally written for voice and organ but acquired their orchestral clothing in 1950, enhancing the atmospheric and often radiant colour spectrum that complements the impassioned vocal lines, here articulated dramatically by the tenor Giorgio Berrugi in Nos 1 and 2 and by the baritone Vasily Ladyuk in Nos 3 and 4. Noche oscura (1950 51) and Coro di morti (1940 41) both feature the Teatro Regio chorus, as assured in the mystical, ethereally chromatic language with which Petrassi voices the poetry of St John of the Cross in the former as it is in the dark colours, apprehension and shrouded imagery of Coro di morti.

— Geoffrey Norris

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Goffredo Petrassi (16 July 1904 – 3 March 2003) was an influential Italian composer, conductor and teacher. Educated at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he later taught composition (1940–60), he also held positions at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the Salzburg Mozarteum. His students included Ennio Morricone, Kenneth Leighton and Peter Maxwell Davies. Petrassi's musical style evolved from the neoclassicism of Alfredo Casella and Paul Hindemith to later influences from Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. His diverse legacy include choral and orchestral works, operas, ballets and chamber music.

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Gianandrea Noseda (born 23 April 1964) is an Italian conductor. He graduated from the Milan Conservatory and furthered his conducting studies with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev. Noseda is currently the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.; Generalmusikdirektor of Zurich Opera; principal guest conductor of the London Symphony; and the music director of the Tsinandali Festival in Georgia. He was also Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 2002 to 2011, and has conducted many recordings for the Chandos label.

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