Alfredo Casella
(1883-1947)
Nine Pieces, Op. 24
Eleven Childrens'
Pieces, Op. 35
Two Ricercari on the
name B-A-C-H, Op. 52
Six Studies, Op. 70
Born into a musical family in Turin in 1883, Alfredo Casella showed
early ability as a pianist. His father, like his two uncles and his paternal
grandfather and his god-father, Alfredo Piatti, was distinguished as a cellist,
but it was from his mother that he had his early piano lessons. At the age of
twelve, on the advice of the composer, pianist and conductor Giuseppe Martucci,
director of the Liceo Musicale in Bologna and a family friend, and of the old
violinist Antonio Bazzini, director of the Milan Conservatory, it was decided
that he should study at the Paris Conservatoire. With death of his father in
1896, after some years of illness, he and his mother moved to Paris, where, in
November, he began his studies. There, in 1901-11902, he attended the
composition class of Gabriel Fauré, while from the beginning he had studied the
piano with Louis Diémer and harmony with Xavier Leroux. He remained in Paris
for some nineteen years, associating with Ravel and with the Romanian George
Enescu, admiring Debussy and the Russian Stravinsky, but above all at first
influenced by Mahler and Richard Strauss, and by performances of Wagner he had
first heard in Turin under Toscanini. After leaving the Conservatoire in 1902
he embarked on a career as a pianist and harpsichordist, primarily working in
chamber music and as an accompanist. It was at this period that he wrote his first
two symphonies. In 1911 he embarked on an intended series of popular symphony
concerts at the Trocadéro, conducting, as he had done intermittently over
previous years, but the series had to be abandoned after the first five
concerts. The general artistic atmosphere of Paris had its influence on him and
the weightier influence of Mabler and Strauss was replaced by that of composers
such as Stravinsky and Albeniz, all of which suggests a certain eclecticism.
Casella's career in Paris reached a height of contemporary distinction
with the 1914 performance of his song-cycle Notte di Maggio, a setting
for low voice and orchestra of poems by Giosua Carducci, a scholar and writer
who had devoted his attention to a patriotic revival of interest in the Italian
past. The work had a mixed reception. By 1915 Casella had realised that his
future lay in Italy. In that year he settled in Rome, teaching the piano at the
Liceo Musicale di Sta Cecilia until 1923 and thereafter, during the following
decade, responsible for a master-class at the Liceo. It was here that he found
himself a figure of importance in a circle of young Italian musicians who
shared his ambition to bring a country that generally seemed musically
provincial and backward into the mainstream of the European music with which he
had been familiar in Paris.
In 1917 Casella established the Società Nazionale di Musica, which
later became the Società Italiana di Musica Moderna and then, in 1923,
he set up, with rather different aims, the Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche,
affiliated to the International Society for Contemporary Music, which had
been founded in Salzburg in 1922. In the earlier society various composers
found a place, including Respighi, Malipiero, Pizzetti, Castelnuovo-Tedesco,
the conductor and composer Vittorio Gui and Puccini's generally acknowledged
successor Riccardo Zandonai. The Corporazione, however, aimed to
introduce a wide international spectrum of contemporary music to Italian
audiences. The new organization, which continued for the next five years, was
established in conjunction with Malipiero and with the strong moral backing of
Gabriele d'Annunzio and soon the very practical financial support of Elizabeth
Sprague Coolidge. The composers in the earlier society, which, over three years,
had served its own limited purpose, were obviously divergent in their styles
and aims and there were serious divisions, when, subsequently, more
conservative composers such as Respighi, Pizzetti and Zandonai attacked the
progressive tendencies of the 1930s, which continued in spite of this and in
spite of the banning of Italy from the ISCM in 1939. Casella, however, remained
a leading figure in the crusade to bring to the Italian public a wider
awareness of contemporary musical trends abroad, something he was able in part
to achieve by his own work as a concert pianist and as a conductor.
Not confining his interest to the promotion of contemporary music,
Italian and from abroad, Casella also had a deep interest in earlier Italian
music, demonstrated in his realisations and arrangements, as well as in his
writing. He was a leading figure in Italian music in his time, director for
some years of the Venice Festival of Contemporary Music and in 1939 playing an
important part in establishing the Settimane Musicali Senesi for the
performance of early Italian music, in conjunction with the activities of the Accademia
Musicale Chigiana that Count Guido Chigi Saracini had statted in Siena in
1932.
Casella's active career, during which he embraced to some extent the patriotic
principles of Mussolini's fascism, finding an element of operatic inspiration
in the Abyssinian campaign, continued until the onset of illness in 1944,
something that still did not prevent him from continuing in performance until
shortly before his death in 1947. The last of his seven operas, La rosa del
sogno, based on his orchestral work Paganiniana of the year before,
was staged in Rome in 1943, the year of his Harp Sonata and of his
related Concerto for piano, percussion and strings.
Three stylistic periods have generally been identified in Casella's
career as a composer. The first of these spans the period until 1913, during
which he was subject to various influences. From 1913 until 1920 he indulged in
more experimental modernism, while the final period of his creative life
brought together earlier elements, now in a style that was purely personal in
its use of counterpoint and its drawing of inspiration from earlier Italian
music It is the second and third of these periods that are exemplified in the
present recording.
The Nove Pezzi, Opus 24, (‘Nine Pieces’), come at the beginning
of his second 'manner' and were written in 1914. The character of the pieces is
indicated clearly in each title. The first of these, In modo funebre, is
dedicated to Stravinsky. It makes use of dense, unarpeggiated chords, calling
for a wide stretch of hand, and it is found necessary to notate the work
sometimes on three or four staves. The mood is indicated both in the title and
in the direction Con solennità. The second piece, In modo barbaro, is
dedicated to Enrique van der Henst and suggests Bartók in its repetition of
accompanying chords, coupled here with harsh discords. It is followed by In
modo elegiaco, dedicated to Pizzetti and marked con duolo. There is
a melancholy right-hand recitative, marked dolente, quasi parlando, moving
forward to a passage of increased intensity, leading to a dynamic climax. After
bass notes martellato, quasi timpani, the first melody returns, now in
octaves, leading to the characteristic sustained chord of the ending. In
modo burlesco, dedicated to Yvonne Lumley, is marked Presto vivace and
is suitably capricious in its progress, including a discordant passage marked vivace
e grottesco, leading to a final emphatic chord. The following piece, In
modo esotico, is suitably dedicated to the composer Florent Schmitt, who
had shown his own leaning towards the exotic in his treatment of the story of Salome
and in other works. To be played una corda throughout, the piece
starts with an unaccompanied and exotic melody, Lento improvissando. There
is a central chordal section, gradually fading into the distance before the
return of the first improvisatory melody, now accompanied. In modo di nenia,
a berceuse, is dedicated to Ravel and maintains a mood of
tranquillity in its gently rocking rhythm and plangent harmonies. The seventh
piece, In modo di minuetto, is dedicated to Tina Dreyfus and follows the
rhythm and pace of the classical minuet and is very typical of the period of
its composition in its form and harmonies.
Dedicated to Yvonne Müller, Casella's pupil and, in 1921, his second
wife, after the annulment of his earlier marriage, In modo di tango, marked
Allegretto indolente e capriccioso, preserves the rhythmic form and mood
of the dance, to which an air of mystery is attached. The last piece of the set
is dedicated to Malipiero, whose visit to Paris in 1913 had brought friendship
with Casella. Marked Allegro vivace, ritmico e robusto, it reflects at
least some of Malipiero's contemporary musical interests. Its rough repeated
rhythms relax momentarily into something gentler before the return of the
original ostinato rhythms. Once again there is a passage of greater
tranquillity, marked dolce, pastorale, before the piece comes to an end
with bass notes quasi pizzicato and a rush down to a final bottom note.
Casella's Undici Pezzi Infantili, Opus 35, (‘Eleven Children's
Pieces’) were written in 1920 and dedicated to the composer Mario
Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The Preludio, marked Allegretto moderato ed
innocente, offers the simplest of right-hand melodies against a continued
accompaniment of alternating fourths, with the right hand eventually taking its
melody to a register below this. It is followed by Valse diatonique, on
the white notes of the keyboard, its outer sections, with a right-hand melody
based more or less on a five-finger exercise, frame a middle section that might
seem a reminiscence of Albéniz. The third piece is a canon, Canone, on
the black notes only, with their unavoidable pentatonic outline. Here the left
hand follows the right in imitation at the octave. A lively Bolero follows,
marked, for good measure, Allegro spagnuolo, leading to Omaggio a
Clementi (‘Homage to Clementi’), a real five-finger exercise. The sixth
piece is a lilting Siciliana, marked Allegretto dolcemente mosso and
with the same classical simplicity of texture. The Giga has the
direction Tempo di giga inglese and is melodically and rhythmically
appropriate, fading into the distance only to return with renewed vigour. The
eighth piece, Minuetto, recalls Ravel in its gentle nostalgia. It is
paired with a Musette, with its repeated bass pattern, to be followed by
the return of the Minuetto Carillon follows, with the direction cristallino
for the right-hand high-register melody of the bells set against a repeated
accompanying pattern. The Berceuse starts with an opening accompaniment
of alternating fifths, marked quasi celeste. This initial section frames
a central passage marked un poco dolente. The whole work ends with a
cheerful Galop Final in characteristic rhythm and melodic contour,
leading, as so many of the pieces had, to a final sustained chord, now
including all seven white notes of the diatonic scale.
In basing compositions on the name of Bach, Casella followed an
established tradition. By a lucky chance the letters of Bach's name give, in
German letter notation, the notes B flat – A – C – B natural (= H). This
cryptogram was used by Johann Sebastian Bach himself and later by Beethoven,
Schumann, Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, Busoni and others. Casella's Due Ricercari
sul name B-A-C-H, Opus 52, (‘Two Ricercari on the Name B-A-C-H’) was
written in 1932 and dedicated to the pianist Walter Gieseking. The chromatic
notes of Bach's name are heard at the opening of the first Ricercare,
Funebre, written in 1932 to mark the first anniversary of his mother's
death, and form the basis of what follows, heard in transposition and in
different parts of the contrapuntal texture. At the end the four notes are
played together, held in a long sustained final chord. In the second Ricercare,
Ostinato, it is, inevitably, the chromatic notes of the BACH motif that is
repeated, in one way or another, throughout a piece of rising excitement and
acceleration.
The Sei Studi, Opus 70, (‘Six Studies’), were written between
1942 and 1944 and intended both as a musical approach to problems of piano
technique and as homage to Chopin, an important pioneer in the musical
exploration of technique, and to Ravel. The first of the studies, Sulle
terze maggiori (‘On Major Thirds’) is dedicated to the Italian pianist and
conductor Carlo Zecchi. There are thirds for the right hand throughout the
study, which relaxes briefly into a passage recalling Ravel's La valse. The
second study, Sulle settime maggiori e minori (‘On Major and Minor
Sevenths’) is dedicated to Armando Renzi. Alternating major and minor sevenths
provide an ostinato accompanying figure to a busy texture that twice
briefly relaxes into Ravellian reminisceuce. This is followed by Di legato sulle
quarte (‘Legato on Fourths’), dedicated to Maria Luisa Faini. Here
right-hand fourths, in triplets, are set in cross-rhythm against a left-hand
part marked fluido e vaporoso. The harmonies, more than ever, suggest
Ravel in an evocative piece. The following study, Sulle note ribattute (‘On
Repeated Notes’) is dedicated to Marcella Barzetti and is marked Allegro
molto vivace ed agitato, an apt summary of its character. The fifth study Sulle
quinte (‘On Fifths’) is described as Omaggio a Chopin No. 2 (‘Homage
to Chopin No. 2’). It bears the direction Tempo del "Preludio in La
magg." di Chopin (‘In the Tempo of the Prelude in A major of
Chopin’). The fifth, are chiefly in the right hand in a piece that again
inevitably recalls Ravel in its harmonies. It is dedicated to Lya de Barberiis.
The last study, Perpetuum mobile (‘Toccata’), is dedicated to Casella's
former pupil, the pianist Pietro Scarpini, a composition pupil of Hindemith. It
is, as its title suggests, a study in velocity, taking its headlong course
towards what now must seem a characteristic ending, a sustained chord that
includes six of the seven notes of the diatonic scale.
Luca Ballerini
Luca Ballerini was born in Bologna and was a pupil of Gino Brandi at the
G.B. Martini Conservatory in Bologna. He later studied at the Geneva
Conservatory with Maria Tipo in the courses of Perfectionnement et Virtuosité
where, in 1989, he won the Georges Filipinetti special prize. He won several
awards, including first prize at the Sixteenth International Piano Competition
in Senigallia, at the same at the same competition being awarded a special
prize for the best chamber music