Goffredo Petrassi - Magnificat; Salmo IX (Gianandrea Noseda)

Information

Composer: Goffredo Petrassi

• Magnificat (for Soprano leggero, Chorus, and Orchestra)
• Salmo IX (in Two Parts for Chorus, String Orchestra, Brass, Percussion, and Two Pianos)

Sabina Cvilak, soprano

Coro & Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Date: 2013

Label: Chandos

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Review

Goffredo Petrassi’s range as a composer was far wider than his eight Concertos for Orchestra (8/05) might suggest, encompassing opera, ballet, solo concertos, chamber and instrumental pieces. His substantial body of vocal and choral music contains some of his finest inspirations, not least the classic Coro di morte (at one time available from Adès).

Psalm IX (1934-36) and the Magnificat (1939-40) are relatively early, still betraying Stravinsky’s influence, but between them one can hear Petrassi’s own voice emerging. In Psalm IX – scored for chorus, string orchestra, brass, percussion and two pianos, and begun just after the First Orchestral Concerto – the impact of the then still very new Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms is palpable, particularly in the hieratic choral writing. Not quite, perhaps, the sum of its parts, it packs quite a punch nevertheless. The Magnificat is altogether slicker and freer stylistically, its opening orchestral episode having a spring in its step redolent of top-quality Martin≤ with more characteristic choral writing.

The performances by the forces of Teatro Regio, Turin, are committed and persuasive, though both works sound like they need a little more ‘living with’. Soprano Sabina Cvilak is taxed at times by Petrassi’s tough, high vocal lines but otherwise hers is a gutsy account. Excellent sound makes this a thoroughly recommendable release and I hope Chandos and Noseda go on to give us more choral Petrassi, such as Coro di morte and the late Orationes Christi.

— Guy Rickards

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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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