Gaetano Donizetti
(1797-1848)
Songs
'I shall have to write
twelve canzonette as usual, to get twenty ducats for each, something
that in times past I used to do while the rice was cooking.' Thus Donizetti to
his brother-in-law, Antonio Vasselli, in 1837, the year of Pia de' Tolomei and
Roberto Devereux, hardly suggesting a profound commitment to the genre. Fortunately
the majority of his 'Liriche da camera' tell a different story. Whether
issued in batches of six or more with fancy titles, a common practice of the
time, or written individually for some professional singer or wealthy amateur,
they display a freshness of melodic invention, neat craftsmanship and, above
all, that inexhaustible formal resource that marks the best of his operas.
In Donizetti's day vocal
chamber music, as it was called in Italy, tended to run to fixed patterns:
strophic with refrain, simple ternary with central episode and reprise,
minor-to-major key 'romanza' also with episode, even the cantabile-cabaletta
scheme of an operatic aria with piano accompaniment that suggests an orchestral
reduction. All are to be found in Donizetti's output, but always with subtle
variations and extensions that carry them well outside the norm. Some of his designs
are wholly original, being dictated by the nature of the text. Clearly more
thought was given to their composition than Donizetti was disposed to admit.
The earliest of his salon
pieces date from his years in Naples, which would remain his base of operations
for a good part of his career. Indeed, in Verdi's eyes he was more of a
Neapolitan than Mercadante, who claimed (falsely) to have been born in that
city; and the judgement was meant as a compliment.
The present recording
includes items from a Collezione di canzonette probably published during
the 1820s and containing five solo songs, three duets and an unaccompanied
quintet. 'Giuro d'amore' [Track 9] , a simple heart-felt avowal of love,
is remarkable in making a perfectly rounded musical statement with no element
of thematic recurrence. 'Su l'onda tremola' [7], an invitation to the
hesitant beloved to take a trip on the Venetian lagoon, is laid out as a rondo,
each reprise varied with light touches of fioritura.
Altogether more ambitious
are four songs from the set, 'Un hiver à Paris', also a Neapolitan publication reprinted
in Paris in 1839. Their style approaches the operatic, with passages of
recitative, inconclusive pauses in the accompaniment before the vocal entry and
even final cadenzas. 'La ninna-nanna' [11] opens with a recitative in a
distant key before settling into a gentle, rocking refrain, its recurrences
extended by haunting melismata on the word 'Ah!'. The other three
require vocal impersonations in the manner of Schubert's 'Der Erlkönig'. In 'Il
pescator' [16] the narration, the grief of the abandoned fisherman and the
blandishments of the goddess of the lake are conveyed in a masterly blend of
recitative, arioso and fully formed cantabile that illustrates every detail
of Schiller's poem. 'La sultana' [15] employs the traditional French 'couplet'
form to tell the story of a cavalier who comes to serenade a sultan's wife
despite her warnings of danger, and on the next night arrives to find only
traces of her murdered body.
'Le crépuscule' [12] is taken from Nuits d'été
à Posillipo, this last a resort north of Naples, famous for its hot springs (1836). Described as a 'romanza', it is in fact an 'aubade', the twilight
being that of morning. Hugo's three verses are set to different melodic ideas, each
of which returns quite naturally to the same refrain for the lover who 'sings
and weeps'.
Of the three 'ariette' from
Soirées d'automne à L'Infrascati (now a Neapolitan suburb) 'Amore e
morte' [1] sustains an elegiac mood throughout with only the faintest
hint of consolation in its major-key conclusion; 'La lontananza' [13]
allows cheerfulness to break in towards the end; 'Amor marinaro' [5] is
one of those joyous ditties in Neapolitan dialect in which Donizetti excelled -
so much so that he was for a long time wrongly credited with the once popular
favourite, 'Te voglio bene assje', still occasionally heard today.
From Inspirations
viennoises (1842), 'Il sospiro' [10] bears witness to the composer's
enduring capacity for long-breathed cantilena in the Italian Romantic manner; while
'È morta' [6] inscribed to Zélie de Coussy (future dedicatee of Don
Pasquale and thought to have been more than a mere friend) features a
highly original distribution of minor and major modes. For her too Donizetti
wrote, to a French text, the most poignant of all his salon pieces 'La mère et
l'enfant' [4] which remains centred in a minor key throughout.
Formal innovation marks 'Una
lagrima' [3] from Matinée Musicale (1841), a preghiera whose
bland surface is disturbed by moments of desperation. 'L'amor mio' [14] from
the same collection has a text by Felice Romani, Donizetti's collaborator on
several of his operas, notably L'elisir d'amore. 'Ah, rammenta, o bella Irene'
[2] is unashamedly operatic: a two-movement aria on the plan of Arsace's 'Ah,
quel giorno' from Rossini's Semiramide. But if the style is
Rossinian canto fiorito, the voice is Donizetti's. 'L'amor funesto' [8]
was intended for Napoleone Moriani, who had starred in the Viennese première of
Linda di Chamounix. Known as 'the tenor of the beautiful death', he was
uniquely qualified to do justice to this poetic, spaciously conceived
apostrophe of a lover to the femme fatale who had ruined his life.
© Julian Budden
