Alberto Franchetti (1860-1942)
Symphony in E minor (1884)
Nella Foresta nera – Impressione sinfonica (1900)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
Sinfonia da camera in B-flat major, Op 8 (1901)
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma/Francesco La Vecchia
MiNensemblet
rec. 1995, Alter Pfarrsaal, Nöttingen, Germany (Wolf-Ferrari); 2011, OSR Studios, Rome, Italy (Franchetti)
Naxos 8.574271 [73]
Composer Alberto Franchetti occupies a small but interesting corner in the history of recorded classical music. In 1902, his opera Germania was proving to be a great success, thanks in no small part to the not-yet-globally-famous Enrico Caruso in a main role. Fred Gaisberg was looking for artists and repertoire to record for his new and revolutionary Gramophone and Typewriter Ltd. Caruso singing the hit Ah, veni qui non chiuder gli occhivaghi from that opera seemed an obvious choice. So one of the world’s first recording stars was born. In turn, Franchetti seemed destined to rival his friend Giacomo Puccini for fame and success.
Fast-forward 120 years. While Caruso’s name and talents live on, you have to be something of a specialist even to have heard Franchetti’s name, let alone know any of the music. A quick check online suggests that there is a Deutsche Oper Berlin DVD of Germania – both work and performance getting mixed reviews. But there has been no complete audio recording of the work or anything substantial, except for another opera Cristoforo Columbo, written a decade earlier than Germania. That makes this recording of interest to those intrigued by the forgotten byways of music.
Franchetti was born into a very wealthy family and, perhaps because of his mother’s Viennese heritage, went to Germany for composition studies. As part of his graduation examination in 1885, he wrote the Symphony in E minor recorded here, his only such work. Both the liner notes written by Tommaso Manera and the website dedicated to the composer (here) make substantial claims for the quality of the work – which I cannot share. For sure, as a student work it is reasonably impressive. Given its quality and evident potential, the disappointment is that he did not build upon the glimmers of talent shown. The list of compositions on that website makes two things seem fairly clear. He wrote the bulk of his music for theatrical or dramatic purposes. And the relative sparseness of his output suggests that his private wealth did not require him to produce more. The companion work recorded here is Nella Foresta nera [in the black forest]. While hardly revolutionary, it suggests a considerably more refined orchestral palette and individual voice. But that appears to be his only other orchestral work. The website lists a symphonic poem Loreley as “lost”.
The score for the symphony can be found on IMSLP. The eye confirms what the ear suggests. In a half-hour work in four movements, the scale and proportion are effective. It is interesting to hear primarily Germanic influences on an Italian composer, not that surprising given his training. Brahms especially is present in the final two movements. No coincidence, I would imagine: the older composer’s Symphony No 3 premiered the year before, in 1883. But then at times Franchetti writes brass chorales over string figurations that somehow suggest Bruckner. The first movement has a fairly standard exposition repeat, observed in this performance. Again, there is something distinctly Germanic in the ‘heroic’ main theme over rocking strings.
The performance here dates from 2011 from the archives of the short-lived Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma under Francesco La Vecchia. They featured on a fair few Naxos and other labels’ discs, mainly featuring Italian Romantic Orchestral repertoire, before their private funding was withdrawn in 2014. Both playing and recording are actually rather good, although just a couple of times ensemble can be a little ragged. The actual sonority of the brass is rather raw and I suspect not as rounded or burnished as the material might suggest would be appropriate.
There follows the already mentioned Nella Foresta nera which does sound like a considerable advance on the symphony, technically and musically. Given the sixteen-year gap, that is perhaps to be expected. Subtitled a “symphonic impression”, this is a generally rather gentle evocation of the natural world. It makes up for in atmosphere what it might lack in terms of musical incident. At the very opening, the horn writing again sounds more Germanic than Italianate, but there is a peaceful grace and sense of lyrical nostalgia that is rather attractive. Again, the Rome players prove to be sensitive to the evocative style of the music. Perhaps there are slight hints of Wagner in his Woodland Murmurs mood, right down to bird calls over horn and string harmonies. By no means is this a revolutionary work, but it is a charming one.
To get a reasonable duration, Naxos have included a performance of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s Sinfonia da camera that originally appeared on the Marco Polo label. The original programme was a slightly mixed bunch: it combined this work with Schoenberg’s arrangement of Strauss’s Emperor Waltz and Bloch’s Four Episodes. The recording from nearly thirty ago is again very good indeed. The conductorless Norwegian ensemble MiNensemblet are enthusiastic and skilled interpreters of this rather impressive and certainly enjoyable work. The ensemble is just eleven players strong: a string quartet plus bass, a woodwind quintet and a piano.
Although nominally a “sinfonia da camera”, Wolf-Ferrari’s four-movement work is actually some three minutes longer than Franchetti’s symphony. Apart from a similar turn-of-the-century date of composition, the rationale for this coupling is that both composers reflected their Italian-Germanic heritage and focussed on theatrical works. Another similarity is the essential musical conservatism of the composers. Still, it has to be said that the chamber symphony by the twenty-five-years-old Wolf-Ferrari shows quite a bit more striking individuality than Franchetti’s symphonic effort at twenty-four. MiNensemblet play very well. Wolf-Ferrari makes no allowances for any sense of a “chamber” work, however he may have titled it. That said, each of the eleven instruments is treated more as a soloist within the ensemble. There is a significant role for the piano, either filling in and thickening general ensemble textures or having quasi-solo material on its own.
The work feels slightly unbalanced. The opening Allegro moderato and the following Adagio account for roughly 20 of the 33 minutes. Yet there is a sustained energy and individuality to the writing that engages more than any formal concerns may detract. Harmonically, too, the work is more interesting and feels less like a student work. I enjoyed how the opening movement went from a rather lyrical opening to something of considerable drama. That perhaps reflected the young Wolf-Ferrari’s engagement with all things theatrical. The liner notes rightly point towards a certain rhapsodic sense of musical development, rather than anything that could be considered traditionally formal. After a rather noble Adagio,the following Vivace con spirito is a charming divertissement-like dance with a salon-like grace and elegance. The closing Adagio-Allegro moderato suffers from an over-extended ending that teeters on the excesses of Arnold’s Grand Grand Overture – probably not a good thing.
But overall this is actually something of a delightful discovery, and it gets an impressive performance here. Other versions are not exactly numerous. Looking online suggests no more than a handful of alternatives which I have never heard, so I cannot comment on their merits. Naxos has a fairly extensive discography of Wolf-Ferrari, and this re-release valuably fills a small gap. This disc is far from essential but certainly interesting and often enjoyable.
Nick Barnard
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