Pizzetti & Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Violin Sonatas

Featuring

Hagai Shaham
Arnon Erez
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

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Composition History

The second movement of Pizzetti's Violin Sonata, titled 'Preghiera per gl'innocenti' ('Prayer for the Innocents'), was imagined by the composer with specific words about suffering.

Critical Reception

John C G Waterhouse, a leading British authority on 20th-century Italian music, described Pizzetti's Violin Sonata as "much the most impressive sonata for violin and piano that has ever been written by an Italian."

Composer Biography

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, another composer on this album, was a descendant of a Jewish banking family in Florence.

Compositional Technique

Pizzetti's Violin Sonata in A major combines elements of earlier music, particularly plainchant, with a more progressive harmonic language within a classical framework.

Composer Biography

Ildebrando Pizzetti, one of the composers on this album, was declared "doubtless the greatest musician in Italy today" by Guido M Gatti in The Musical Times in December 1921.

Critical Reception

Pizzetti's Violin Sonata in A major was considered a major addition to Italian chamber music, with his pupil Castelnuovo-Tedesco dedicating a long article to it.

Composition History

Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Tre vocalizzi were originally written for wordless voice and piano in 1928, and later arranged for violin and piano by Mario Corti in 1930.