Pizzetti: Orchestral Music

Albumbeschreibung

Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) belongs to a generation of post-Romantic Italian composers most of whom, except for Ottorino Respighi, have fallen into relative obscurity. Pizzetti was among the more significant of a group that included Montemezzi, Wolf-Ferrari, Malipiero, and Casella, so it's good to have this collection of very fine performances of some of his orchestral works. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, led by Osmo Vänskä, gives the colorful and evocative music the Romantic sweep it needs. The four pieces presented here demonstrate Pizzetti's gift for brilliant but frequently subtle orchestration, lyrical melodic invention, and broadly expressive gestures. While the music is unfailingly appealing, it lacks the stamp of a powerfully individual voice. Although Pizzetti was a strong advocate for contemporary trends in composition, his own music is resolutely tonal and sometimes sounds like film scores of the era. Particularly in the two works that don't have an explicitly Italian theme, Preludio a un altro giorno and L'Edipo Re di Sofocle, the music has a generically Romantic feeling and conventionality that keep it from being especially memorable. Rondò veneziano and the suite from the incidental music for d'Annunzio's play La Pisanella have a more clearly Latinate and exotic flavor, and are generally more substantial. While Pizzetti broke no new ground, his music should appeal to fans of post-Romantic orchestral music. The sound is clean and spacious.

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