Leone Sinigaglia - Violin Concerto; etc. (Various Artists)

Information

Composer: Leone Sinigaglia

• Romanza e Humoresque for cello and orchestra, Op. 16
• Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A major, Op. 20
• Two Characteristic Pieces for string orchestra, Op. 35: No. 1, Regenlied

Laura Marzadori, violin

Fernando Caida Greco, cello

Orchestra Città di Ferrara

Marco Zuccarini, conductor

Date: 2018

Label: Tactus

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Review

My last encounter with Sinigaglia’s Violin Concerto was via an archive recording by the excellent Alfonso Mosesti on Rhine Classics. However, that 1959 mono broadcast can’t be expected to provide the plush aural perspective of a 24-bit digital recording such as this one, and nor does it. In that respect this Tactus recording, made in Ferrara in 2013, must stand alone.

As I wrote in my previous review, Sinigaglia’s 1899 Concerto is an attractive proposition. It has something of the open-hearted quality of the Dvořák, the freshness of the Goldmark and a full quotient of ripe lyricism cut from high late-Romanticism. The central movement is a meditative Arcadia, enlivened by the violin’s songful lyricism. That said, the new recording sounds rather circumspect alongside Mosesti and Ferruccio Scaglia’s incisive drama. The disparity between tempi is also startling, the older recording taking 28 and a half minutes, the newer one getting on for 37. It totally changes the concept of a concerto that in Mosesti’s hands is incisive, expressive and exciting and in the admirable young Laura Marzadori’s hands tends to sound like a rhapsody. Her opening paragraphs are really not the Allegro risoluto that Mosesti achieves and though her tone has sufficient sweetness and she plays with great delicacy there is, from time to time, too great a sense of caution and too little fervour: lacking propulsion, things can hang fire. The beautiful pastoral central movement responds well to Marzadori and Zuccarini’s refined thoughtfulness but there is surely more expressive intensity to be derived from a more athletic approach such as Mosesti provides, binding the work’s rhetoric tightly as he does so. In short, this is rather a small-scale reading, and a little subdued, where the finale’s passagework can sound clogged at the chosen tempo. The live performance may account for a degree of caution and you will certainly appreciate many of the concerto’s virtues – but for a reading of romantic fire I’m afraid Mosesti is on an altogether different plane.

There are two welcome companion works that round out one’s appreciation of Sinigaglia’s output. The Romanza and Humoresque for Cello and Orchestra was dedicated to Francesco Serato, cellist father of Arrigo Serato, who was himself the dedicatee of the Violin Concerto. This brings things full-circle very nicely. It has alluring lyricism and its wistful qualities are adeptly brought out whilst the light side of the diptych, lively and genial and with a characteristically warmly textured, central panel can sound rather Dvořákian. The orchestra alone takes on the first of the Two Characteristic Pieces for String Orchestra. The Regenlied offers cantabile pleasures and if you think of the slow movements in the Serenades of Tchaikovsky or Elgar you won’t be far off the mark. It’s a shame that the Etude-Caprice didn’t follow but presumably that was a programmatic matter that evening in Ferrara.

The booklet is attractively done with notes in Italian and English. The performances are polished and careful but for adrenalin and passion bear Mosesti in mind, sonics notwithstanding.

— Jonathan Woolf

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Leone Sinigaglia (14 August 1868 – 16 May 1944) was an Italian composer and mountaineer. Born in Turin, he studied composition with Giovanni Bolzoni at the local conservatoire and was passionate about climbing, often spending time in Cavoretto, where nature inspired his music. His travels across Europe shaped his artistic development: he met Brahms in Vienna in 1894 and Dvořák in Prague in 1900. Returning to Turin in 1901, Sinigaglia focused on arranging and preserving Italian folk music. His most acclaimed work is Vecchie Canzoni popolari del Piemonte, Op. 40, a six-volume collection of Piedmontese folk songs.

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Laura Marzadori (born 9 January 1989 in Bologna) is an Italian violinist. She began violin studies before age four and trained under renowned teachers including Enzo Porta, Marco Fornaciari, Pavel Berman and Zakhar Bron. A prodigy, she won numerous national and international competitions in her teens, such as the Città di Vittorio Veneto and the Andrea Amati contests. In 2014, at just 25, she became Concertmaster of the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, chosen by a jury led by Daniel Barenboim. Marzadori is also a passionate chamber musician and soloist, known for premiering and recording rare violin concertos.

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Cellist Fernando Caida Greco received the First Absolute Prize at the "V. Bucchi" Competition in Rome in 2002, launching his career in major concert venues. A dedicated scholar of historical cello performance, he plays on original instruments with gut strings, applying authentic techniques of the classical Italian school even in 20th-century and contemporary works. He frequently gives lectures and masterclasses on performance practice. Caida Greco teaches Chamber Music at the "U. Giordano" Conservatory in Foggia and performs on a C.A. Miremont cello from 1880 and a Bruno Montagne cello from 2017.

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