IDAGIO | Casella: Notte di maggio - Cello Concerto

Featuring

Francesco La Vecchia
Olivia Andreini
Andrea Noferini
Sun Hee You
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma
Alfredo Casella

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Composer Biography

Alfredo Casella, a composer, pianist, conductor, and music critic, was born in Turin in 1883 and grew up in a musical atmosphere.

Instruments

Andrea Noferini, the cellist on this recording, plays a Tomaso Balestrieri cello made in Mantova in 1759.

Composition History

Casella's Notte di maggio (A Night in May) was influenced by Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Debussy, who praised the work.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Casella aimed for a music that was "unquestionably Italian in idiom: strong, well-constructed, clear, steeped in the sunshine which moulds our life," rejecting foreign influences.

Composition History

Casella's Cello Concerto, Op. 58, was dedicated to Arturo Bonucci, a friend and colleague with whom Casella co-founded the Trio Italiano.

Compositional Technique

Casella's Notte di maggio uses an unusual twelve-note chord, a pile of perfect fourths four and a half octaves high, which he described as combining all twelve notes of the chromatic scale.

Compositional Technique

Scarlattiana, Op. 44, is a divertimento for piano and small orchestra that uses over eighty themes from Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas, creating a mosaic of musical ideas.