Pizzetti: Symphony in A Major & Harp Concerto in E-Flat Major

Album review

Composed in 1940, Pizzetti’s Symphony in A was one of the works, which included Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, commissioned to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the accession of the legendary first Emperor of Japan. This powerful and unsettling work, Pizzetti’s only Symphony, is notable for its ominous mood, its compositional progress between February and June 1940 mirroring the unfolding European conflict and Italy’s own declaration of war. And even though it was supposed to hail imperial power and glory, the work is almost as far from joyful as Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem – which was eventually cancelled for the celebrations. This is certainly not the music the Fascist authorities would have expected when they commissioned the composer to represent Italy’s music scene. Twenty years later Pizzetti composed his Harp Concerto for Clelia Gatti Aldrovandi (1901-89), Italy’s leading harpist, a work that is by contrast both lyrical and vivacious. Aldovandri inspired at least a dozen new harp works, including sonatas by Paul Hindemith in 1939 and Alfredo Casella in1943, as well as a concerto by Pizzetti’s former student Nino Rota in 1947. © SM/Qobuz