Luigi Dallapiccola - Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 (Gianandrea Noseda)

Information

Composer: Luigi Dallapiccola

• Partita
• Dialoghi
• Quattro Liriche di Antonio Machado
• Three Questions with Two Answers

Gillian Keith, soprano

Paul Watkins, cello

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Date: 2010

Label: Chandos

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Review

It is five years since Chandos issued Volume 1 of their Dallapiccola series but the wait has been well worthwhile. Vol 2 includes two of the composer’s most refined and characterful instrumental scores, written within two years of each other, and both are performed here with the kind of balance between striking details and a sense of evolving overall shape which it’s all too easy to take for granted in music that is a good deal more intricate than it may sound at first hearing.

Dialoghi (1960) is a fine example of Dallapiccola’s ability to rethink traditional genres like the concerto in refreshing and stimulating ways. Economical and intense, it is never merely austere in that “post-Webern” fashion so familiar around 1960, and Paul Watkins brings ideal eloquence and spontaneity to the solo part. Three Questions with Two Answers (1963) is closely linked to the opera Ulisse but lacks that troubled work’s occasional looseness and lack of focus. There’s a spirit of stoic intensity, brooding but never merely despairing, conveyed by luminous orchestral textures, all beautifully caught in excellent recorded sound.

The early Partita (1930-32) is on a much lower creative level, with moments of Respighian, even Puccinian flamboyance failing to offset a prevailing blandness which Dallapiccola soon learned to avoid. Gillian Keith does her best in the final vocal movement but comes into her own in the orchestral version of the brief but exhilarating Machado settings, originally written with piano accompaniment. Recommended especially for those who don’t believe that 12-note music can be joyful, it is one of Dallapiccola’s most perfect works.

— Arnold Whittall

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Luigi Dallapiccola (3 February 1904 – 19 February 1975) was a prominent Italian composer known for for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions. Raised in Trieste and interned in Austria during World War I, he was influenced early by Verdi and Wagner. He studied and later taught at the Florence Conservatory. Dallapiccola began exploring 12-tone music in the late 1930s, with Canti di prigionia marking his mature style and serving as a protest against Fascism. His works blend emotional depth with technical complexity. He taught in the U.S. during the 1950s–60s, influencing many, including composer Luciano Berio.

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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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