Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1916)
Sogno
Javier Camarena (tenor)
Ángel Rodríguez (piano)
rec. 2023, Sol Joseph Recital Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, USA
Sung texts with English translations enclosed
Reviewed as download from press preview
Pentatone PTC5187184 [81]

Mexican tenor Javier Camarena has lately emerged as one of the leading lyrical stars in his Fach. About a year ago, my colleague Mike Parr and I hailed his first recital for Pentatone with rare Donizetti arias (review) (review), and now he is back with a new disc, filled to the brim with Tosti songs. Tosti composed almost 400 songs, and some years ago Brilliant issued the lot in four CD boxes, encompassing a total of 18 discs (review ~ review ~ review ~ review). Reviewing that project was certainly time consuming but never tedious. I was just stunned by Tosti’s inexhaustible creative power and melodic inventiveness. I would say that there are maybe fifteen to twenty of his songs that are performed and recorded with some regularity, but my traversal of all 400 during a period of four years taught me that there are hundreds of other songs that are worth rescuing from oblivion, and I was happy to see that Camarena has looked outside the box and included several rarities. Thus he begins at the deep end with his favourite poet, D’Annunzio, and the serious mini-cycle Quattro canzoni d’Amaranta, composed in 1907. The second of them, L’alba sepàra dalla luce l’ombra, is one of those songs that everybody knows, sung by Caruso et al, but the other three are practically never heard, and that’s a great pity. They are marvellous songs, but they deviate from the easy-going parlour style of many of Tosti’s ‘lollipops’. The first song opens with a long melancholic piano introduction and the last of them ends with muffled, gloomy chords that might dishearten some listeners. However, within the four songs there are deeply moving episodes, drama and glow. Repeated listening will no doubt reveal the greatness of the work.

Another rarity is the three Mélodies (tracks 9-11) to French poems by Charles Fuster. They are a reminder that Tosti set a lot of French poetry. All the well-known songs are settings of Italian texts, but Tosti had a wider scope than that, and Camarena also pays attention to his settings of English texts, which of course was natural to him, considering that he lived a large part of his life in London and eventually became a British citizen – something that was looked upon with disapproval in Italy. The stormy and passionate Because of you (track 12) and the charming First Waltz (track 20) are two fine examples of his Englishness. The Italians were somewhat comforted when Tosti returned to Italy at the end of his life and died in Rome on 2 December 1916. 

I had expected that he would be an ideal singer of Tosti with his mellifluous lyric voice, exquisitely nuanced readings and delicious pianissimos and diminuendos – and so it turned out. Lasciami! Is sung with excellent legato, and he builds up the drama with great intensity. He has the required glow for L’alba sepàra and the concentration for the concluding Che dici, o parola del Saggio. His lovely diminuendos ennoble Malia and the title song Sogno is so sensitively phrased. L’ultima canzone is impassioned, and in the first of the three French songs by Fuster he caresses the melody gracefully. Because of you has the right intensity – but here and in a few other instances there is a possible fly in the ointment: there is a tendency to press the voice unduly close to the upper limit of volume. My wife reacted more than I did and felt an alarming strain in the tone, and maybe that is a warning sign. It feels unnecessary to risk this beautiful voice by breaking the sound barrier. Beauty of tone is more preferable than brilliance in fortissimo, but the overriding impression is still that of his exquisite nuances and his elegance – listen to ‘A vucchella – and his charm elsewhere. I believe that Tosti, who was a voice teacher himself, would have agreed. The songs were intended for an intimate milieus, not opera houses. 

Let me point out that this is a minor criticism that should not deter any lover of beautiful singing from acquiring this disc, and also add that the interplay between Camarena and his long-standing accompanist Ángel Rodriguez is as seamless as can be with two musicians who have worked intimately together for twelve years. 

Göran Forsling

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Contents
Quattro canzoni d’Amaranta
1 Lasciami! Lascia ch’io respiri
2 L’alba sepàra dalla luce l’ombra
3 In van preghi
4 Che dici, o parola del Saggio?
5 Malìa
6 Aprile
7 Sogno
8 L’Ultima Canzone
Mélodies
9 No. 1, Mon bien aimé!
10 No. 2, Petite valse romantique
11 No. 3, Avec toi!
12 Because of You
13 Vorrei morire!
14 ‘A vucchella
15 Luna d’estate!
16 Marechiare*
17 Apri!
18 Regret
19 Penso!
20 First Waltz*
21 Chitarrata abruzzese
 

* arranged for piano by Ángel Rodríguez