Franco Alfano (1875-1954)
Concerto in A for Violin, Cello and Piano (1929/30)
Piano Quintet in A flat (1945/6)
DaVinci Ensemble
rec. 2023, Bernareggio, Italy,
Brilliant Classics 97310 [61]

Alfano was one of that very interesting group of Italian composers born in the 1870s and 1880s, which also included Ernanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948), Alfredo Casella (1883-1947), Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973) and Riccardo Zandonai (1883-1944). As they reached maturity each of them was faced by an important choice of musical path. The future of classical music in Italy was not clear. Should one (i) commit to the continuation of the Italian tradition of opera or (ii) primarily write instrumental music largely based on the examples provided by Northern Europe or, indeed, (iii) try to build a distinctively Italian instrumental music rooted in the music of the Italian baroque and Renaissance.

Some composers unhesitatingly chose one or two of these alternatives as their musical path; Alfredo Casella, for example, studied in Paris from 1912 to 1915, and after World War I toured Europe and Russia as a pianist, thus being exposed to a much greater variety of music than he would have encountered in Italy, as evidenced by his interest in figures such as Strauss, Mahler and Bartók. He also met Grieg, a composer he much admired. In the 1920s he worked as a guest conductor in the USA before returning to Mussolini’s Italy. All of this took him well away from what he thought of as the parochialism of Italy’s obsession with opera. Gradually, the mature idiom of his own compositions emerged as an Italian version of neoclassicism. He also played a significant role in the rediscovery of Vivaldi’s music. In more modern music his interests were varied and included the work of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky, all of whom he knew. He couldn’t resist making at least one contribution to the Italian operatic tradition, with his opera La donna serpent  – The Snake Woman, (1932). Never merely dogmatic in his ideas, Casella even allowed himself to echo Puccini in some of the work’s arias, notably those sung by King Altidor. Malipiero, on the other hand, is most often remembered for his work as an editor of Monteverdi’s complete works and of further works by Frescobaldi and Vivaldi, thus displaying a well-developed sense of the early Italian tradition.  It would be fair to say that what is surely his finest opera, San Francesco d’Assisi (1921), owes more to Monteverdi than to Puccini.

The one fact about Alfano known by most music-lovers who aren’t really familiar with his own work is that Toscanini and the publisher Ricordi chose him to complete Turandot (on the basis of surviving notes by Puccini). Born in 1875 in Naples, Alfano studied piano and composition in his native city (at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella), before furthering his musical studies in Leipzig which, amongst other things, made him more familiar than most of his Italian contemporaries were with the work of composers such as Busoni, Richard Strauss and even Brahms. While in Leipzig he was also able to meet Grieg, a composer he admired.

Unusually, Alfano contrived to achieve a balance between operatic and non-operatic works in his career as a composer. He composed twelve operas including, most notably, Risurrezione (1904) and La leggenda di Sakuntala (1921). In addition to his operas, his orchestral works included two symphonies, No.1 in E (1910) and No.2 in C major (1933). His chamber compositions included three String Quartets (no.1, 1918; no.2, 1926; no. 3, 1949), a Violin Sonata in D major (1924, rev.1933) and a Cello Sonata in G minor (1925). It is ironic that he should largely be known for the ending of Turandot, since much of his best music is to be found in his non-operatic works, whether that be in the late romantic idiom of his Suite romantica (1907-8), later revised as the ballet Eliana (1923) or the neo-classicism of his Divertimento (1934)for piano and chamber orchestra, or indeed in the two works recorded on this enjoyable new disc.

Written in 1929 and premiered in May of the following year (at Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia, with the composer at the piano, along with the violinist Luca Ballerini and the cellist Benedetto Mazzacurati), the Concerto in A for Violin, Cello and Piano is a substantial and richly expressive work, with some fine lyrical passages. It is striking in part because of Alfano’s decision to make use of three ancient modes: the Phrygian in the first movement, the Dorian in the second and the Hipolydian in the third. The first movement (Con dolce malinconia) is by far the longest of the three – only a few seconds shorter than the two ensuing movements combined; it is emotionally searching. It opens quietly, dominated by a dialogue between violin and piano, with the cello used for textural thickening. The inter-instrumental dialogue grows more complex and various – but isn’t difficult to follow – as the movement proceeds, with the cello no longer in the background. The later parts of the movement contain several changes of tempo, the bulk of the movement being marked moderato and full of subtle timbral effects. The second movement is marked Allegretto fantastico and is imaginative in its varied sonorities; it is by turns lyrical and dramatic and, perhaps paradoxically, it feels the most intimate and personal of the three movements, rich in evocative subtleties and suggestions. The closing movement is fitted for the role by the power and decisiveness which characterise it.  It includes some well-constructed and attractive contrapuntal sections and closes with a definitive coda full of grande vigoria (great vigour or strength), i.e with a definitive sense of closure. This Concerto has both emotional and intellectual weight and it is well worth getting to know.

The Piano Quintet was written some 16 years after the Concerto; it was to be the last piece of chamber music Alfano wrote, approximately ten years before his death. In this performance, Miramonti, Granata and Graziani are joined by violinist Roberto D’Auria and violist Ruggero Mastrolenzi. The proportions between the three movements of this Quintet are almost identical with those of the Concerto – the first movement (Largo) being a little shorter than the combined lengths of the second (Moderato con grazia) and the third (Allegro). In style the whole is reminiscent of French models – perhaps especially that of César Franck, but with some lyrical episodes (e.g. for the violin in the opening largo) which owe something to the Italian operatic tradition. That opening movement is, indeed, quite dramatic. On the whole, however, I find this Piano Quintet less rewarding than the earlier Concerto.

Both works are played perceptively by the two different incarnations of the DaVinci Ensemble. This instrumental ensemble was formed in 2023 by Marcello Miramonti and Enrico Graziani, and dedicated to making Italian chamber music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries better known and more widely appreciated. This they have done very effectively, through their recordings and concert performances. This well-recorded disc presents a fine example of the insight and technical assurance which is typical of their work.

Glyn Pursglove

Performers
Marcello Miramonti (violin); Enrico Graziani (cello); Francesco Granata (piano); Roberto D’Auria (violin); Ruggero Mastrolorenzi (viola)

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