Casella's symphonic rhapsody, Italia, Op. 11, was premiered in 1910 at the Salle Gaveau, where he conducted it alongside his Second Symphony.
Composition History
Casella's Third Symphony, Op. 63, was commissioned by Frederick Stock to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Compositional Technique
In Italia, Casella used folk tunes he found in Favara's Canti della terra e del mare di Sicilia to depict the grim conditions in Sicily, including a lover's curse and a lament from sulphur mine workers.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Casella aimed to do for Italy what Isaac Albéniz, a Spanish composer, had done for Spain in his work Iberia, by incorporating idiomatic folk features into his composition Italia.
Performer Biography
Gianandrea Noseda, the conductor on this album, was the Conductor Laureate of the BBC Philharmonic for nearly ten years and is also the Artistic Director of the Stresa Festival in Italy.
Composer Biography
Alfredo Casella, the composer, spent his formative years in Paris, studying piano with Louis Diémer and composition with Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire.
Composition History
Casella's Introduzione, Corale e Marcia, Op. 57, completed in 1935, was influenced by Igor Stravinsky and structurally derived from César Franck's three-part forms.
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