Franco Alfano (1875–1954)
Cello Sonata • Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano
Franco Alfano was born in Naples on 8 March 1875.
After studying the piano privately with Alessandro
Longo, and harmony and composition with Camillo de
Nardis and Paolo Serrao at the Conservatorio di San
Pietro a Majella, Naples, he moved in 1895 to Leipzig,
where he furthered his studies with Hans Sitt and
Salomon Jadassohn. In 1896 he went to Berlin and
launched himself as a pianist, though he did not
continue this activity systematically for long: in later
life he appeared in public only as a song accompanist
and chamber music player, mainly in his own works.
From 1899 until about 1905 he was based in Paris,
where he composed light music for the Folies Bergère.
It is interesting to note that, although Alfano is thought
of as an Italian composer, he was actually half French
on his mother’s side. He then settled in Milan, moving
in 1914 to San Remo, which remained at least his
summer home for the rest of his life. It was in 1904 that
his big international success came following the world
première of his opera, Risurrezione, based on the
Tolstoy novel. It was then performed at La Scala in
1906. Continued popularity led to a United States tour
starring Mary Garden in 1925–27. By 1951 it had
reached its 1000th performance and he had become
Naples’ most celebrated son. From 1916 he taught
composition at the Liceo Musicale, Bologna, which he
directed from 1918. While there (1920), he helped to
found the society Musica Nova, which in some ways
paralleled Casella’s Società Italiana di Musica Moderna.
Alfano was appointed director of the Liceo Musicale
(later Conservatory) of Turin in 1923, remaining there
until 1939. During 1940–42 he was superintendent of the
Teatro Massimo, Palermo, subsequently becoming for a
few months professor of operatic studies at the
Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, Rome. From 1947 to
1950 he served as acting director of the Liceo Musicale,
Pesaro. Generally known outside Italy only as the
composer who completed Puccini’s Turandot, Alfano
was far from being a mere Puccini disciple, but his
originality and gentle personality did not please the
arrogant Arturo Toscanini, who conducted Turandot’s world première. After Alfano nearly lost his eyesight
poring over Puccini’s sketches, Toscanini brutally cut
Alfano’s finished ending from 377 bars to 268. Then,
not satisfied, he further cut out Turandot’s aria ‘Del
primo pianto’. Finally, on opening night at La Scala in
1926, Toscanini stopped conducting where Puccini’s
music ended and Alfano’s began, and left the orchestra
pit. This incident had a lot to do with damaging Alfano’s
career and ensuring his falling into obscurity after his
death. Only in the 1980s was the original Alfano ending
discovered and finally performed as he intended.
The best of his subsequent operas were much less
conformist, and consequently less popular. The original
version of L’ombra di Don Giovanni shows an
awareness both of the more complex, radical aspects of
Debussy and of the Strauss of Salome and Elektra,
without being slavishly imitative of either. La leggenda
di Sakùntala, unquestionably Alfano’s most important
stage work, fulfilled most of what L’ombra had
promised. The earlier opera’s rather diffuse turbulence
is replaced, however, by a poised, luminous though still
very complex texture, saturated with the scented
atmosphere of the Indian legends on which the libretto
is based, yet without ‘exoticisms’ of the more direct and
obvious kind. De’ Paoli aptly compared the intricate,
colourful orchestral fabric to ‘certain oriental carpets’.
The influence of Debussy remains fundamental; yet the
rich harmonic palette is no less individual than in
L’ombra. Moreover, the lyrical impulse is still
recognizably Italian, notably in such highlights as
Sakùntala’s monologue ‘O nuvola’ in Act 2, one of
Alfano’s most inspired passages. As an orchestral
composer Alfano first came to prominence, shortly
before World War I, with the picturesque Suite
romantica (later renamed Eliana) and the sumptuous,
long-winded First Symphony, both of which, in their
different ways, represent transitional stages between the styles of Risurrezione and L’ombra di Don Giovanni.
Other important operas are Cyrano de Bergerac from
1936, and Madonna Imperia, first staged in Turin in
1927. The war years and the 1920s saw the composition
of his most important chamber works, among which the
agitated, improvisatory Violin Sonata and the more
mellow and contemplative Cello Sonata are
outstanding. He also wrote a Quintet for Piano and
Strings and three String Quartets.
The Cello Sonata was composed in 1925 as a result
of a commission from the eminent American music
philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864–1953).
It received its first performance in 1928 in Rome by the
cellist Benedetto Mazzacurati with Alfano at the piano.
A large-scale work lasting over thirty minutes, its highly
charged mood is reminiscent of the verismo style of
Italian Opera (Puccini, Leoncavallo, Giordano), though
the harmonic language is more like that of Debussy and
Ravel. Traversing an extreme emotional range, from the
serene opening chords to the turbulent third movement,
the sonata makes great technical demands on the
players. Very few works explore the tonal possibilities
of the cello as does this one. The profundity of the
sonata is striking from the start, setting a religious tone,
and gradually working itself up into a heart-on-sleeve
outpouring of feeling. The second movement is a gentle,
nostalgic lullaby, while the third is firmly rooted in
twentieth-century techniques. Throwing itself into a
frenzy of anxiety, suddenly this deeply personal
statement becomes an outpouring of grief. Ending on a
note of resignation and exhaustion, it seems to suggest
the end of an epoch.
The more neoclassical Concerto presents three
movements of widely differing styles. The first begins
in a modal serenity, with a hint of Renaissance
polyphony, but this large-scale movement soon leaves
the past behind by creating a dramatic story-telling. It
culminates in a heart-rending elegy for the two strings,
then gradually subsiding in the end to its philosophical
ruminating. The second is a wild combination of Basque
Zortico and Eastern European folk-music and the third
is clearly a celebration of ancient Rome, with hints of
Bartók and Prokofiev. During the 1920s and 1930s
‘Italian-ness’ in art was encouraged, and composers
were expected to show signs of patriotism. The unusual
choice of the title Concerto is probably because of its
extreme virtuosic instrumental writing. It is less a
chamber work and more of a showpiece than the term
Trio would suggest. The Concerto received its world
première at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome in
April 1933, with the violinist Ballarini, cellist
Mazzacurati, and Alfano. It is dedicated to his friend
and fellow Neapolitan, violinist Alberto Curci.
Samuel Magill
