CD REVIEW
– Musa
Italiana
RICCARDO CHAILLY
FILARMONICA DELLA SCALA
Decca 485 2944
[64:00]
'
Regular readers
will be aware of my enthusiasm
for the top Italian conductor and
his first-rate pit band, as four
of their discs have already been
reviewed here. The latest
recording, from 2021 –
socially distanced with a new
floor created over the seats of
the Teatro alla Scala's Golden
Auditorium stalls to accommodate
the opera house orchestra –
features Felix Mendelssohn's
(1809-47) deservedly popular 'Italian'
Symphony (No.4 in A).
It was composed
during a 10-month Grand Tour of
Italy and in its 30':17"
seeks to conjure up the sights
and sounds of the country, using
in the final movement the rhythms
of Neapolitan dances. When it was
first performed in 1833 (the
revised version here is from a
year later) the composer spoke of
it as "the jolliest piece I
have written." So light
music lovers need not be wary of
sampling it.
Two other
Austro-German composers, for whom
the tune's the thing, contribute
to an attractive although not
over generously timed album.*
Like many others in those days,
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) –
who incidentally was only five
foot one tall – greatly
admired the works of his Italian
contemporary, Gioacchino Rossini
(1792-1868), and in 1817 composed
a pair of lively overtures that
evoke the latter’s world
– later to be called 'In
the Italian Style'.
The release is
completed by three early
overtures from the pen of the
greatest classical tunesmith of
them all, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-91), who wrote many of his
operas in the Italian language
and as a very young man lived in
the country for 15 months. They
are from operas premiered in
Milan from 1770 to 1772: 'Mitridate,
re di Pronto'; 'Ascanio
in Alba' and 'Lucio
Silla'. The composer
returned for the second and third
of these occasions.
It seems apposite
here in these times of great
despair about what is happening
around the world to quote Lady
Antonia Fraser from the June 2022
copy of Gramophone: "Mozart
gives me hope …. a sense of
cheerfulness".
Italy (officially
the Italian Republic) has some
stunning scenery, wonderful
architecture, art and antiquities
as well as being the birthplace
of pasta and pizza. This album
attests to it also inspiring
quality melodic music making. Altamente
raccomandato.
* The first CD in
an outstanding new boxset of
Sibelius symphonies (Decca 485
2256) plays for 85:56 – the
longest I have heard yet.
© Peter
Burt 2022
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