Britten & Shostakovich: Music based on texts by Michelangelo

Featuring

Mark Milhofer
Marco Scolastra
Mirco Palazzi
Benjamin Britten
Dmitri Shostakovich

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Michelangelo Buonarroti often wrote about love, exploring the contrast between its presence and absence, and the coexistence of carnal and spiritual love.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Both Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich, two 20th-century composers, created song cycles based on the sonnets of Michelangelo Buonarroti, an extraordinary painter, sculptor, and architect who lived centuries earlier.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Dmitri Shostakovich saw himself reflected in Michelangelo's poems, particularly in those dedicated to Dante, relating to his own condition as an artist in conflict with authority.

Compositional Technique

Michelangelo Buonarroti's poetic writing is characterized by an energetic, passionate, bristling language, closer to the lexicon of Dante Alighieri than to that of Francesco Petrarch.

Interpretation

This album presents a reference edition of the two works, thanks to the initiative and stylistic relevance of the three performers: Mark Milhofer (tenor), Mirco Palazzi (bass), and Marco Scolastra (piano).

Composer Biography

Dmitri Shostakovich dedicated his Suite from Michelangelo's Sonnets to his wife, Irina Antonovna, and it was premiered seven months before his death.

Composition History

Dmitri Shostakovich's Suite from Michelangelo's Sonnets was inspired by hearing Benjamin Britten's Seven Sonnets sung by Peter Pears in Moscow in 1966.