ADRIANO AT 60
This month (July
2004) the conductor, composer and musicologist,
Adriano, celebrates his 60th
birthday. He has many strings to his
bow. He researches, edits arranges,
conducts and records a very broad range
of Romantic classical music mostly by
little known composers. He is probably
best known as a keen champion of the
Italian composer Ottorino Respighi but
he has also recorded many albums of
film music notably by French composers
such as Georges Auric and Arthur Honegger.
MusicWeb’s editor, Rob Barnett
recently
extensively interviewed Adriano
. A further interview for the U.S. magazine,
Fanfare can also be read in their
November/December 1998 edition. This
latest interview is meant to be a 60th
birthday updating of those interviews:
Geneva, April 2003.
Adriano (right) with Bo Hyttner (left)of
Sterling at the press presentation of
CD with works by Pierre Maurice
Ian.Lace.: I understand
that you are no longer recording for
Marco Polo but I believe you are quite
happy since you began recording for
Sterling?
Adriano.: Yes, I am
now working for the Swedish recording
company, Sterling with great satisfaction.
Its owner, Bo Hyttner, had wanted me
to record on his label even while I
was still bound to Marco Polo. Bo has
become a very good friend of mine. For
me, he is the "dream recording
boss", not only because he is a
very sensitive man, but also because
he is a committed promoter of unknown
Romantic repertoire and finally because
he really likes me as a person and appreciates
me as an artist. He is a passionate
music lover, and a friendly and spontaneous
person. He will not hesitate to call
me out of the blue, even while cruising
or on holiday, to tell me that he is
just re-listening to one of my recordings,
and to observe that he finds it conducted
beautifully and that he has been touched
to his heart. At other times he will
ask me about projects I am researching
or if I know about this or that unknown
composer.
Since 2002, I have
been able to record five CDs for Sterling;
the sixth will be completed this summer.
I can only conduct a limited repertoire
for Sterling. This means, unfortunately,
no film music, however, at last I have
been able to realise a few of those
projects that had been rejected by Marco
Polo over the previous decade including
the building up of a series of recordings
of music by Romantic and post-Romantic
Swiss composers, a series which has
been well-received everywhere. Music
by more composers of the same period
from Austria and Germany will follow.
For the Swiss the repertoire
I have fortunately found sponsors here
in Switzerland, but the begging around
often consumes more time than the time
needed to study the scores! For the
Pierre Maurice and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
discs it is probable that I could have
clinched even more generous sponsorship
because the composer’s heirs could raise
funds from their own sources. As far
as Jacques-Dalcroze is concerned, thanks
to the joint support of the Dalcroze
Institute and the city of Geneva, I
will be able to record this composer’s
complete orchestral works on five CDs,
a realisation of one of my most cherished
dreams. Just a couple of weeks ago I
received an invitation from a smaller
American label (the proprietor seems
to be another sincere music lover and
a fan of mine) to record more unknown
repertoire. For Sterling I will certainly
try to continue recording Fritz Brun’s
Symphonies (there are 10 in total).
Brun was a Swiss composer who had a
great affinity with Wilhelm Furtwängler,
a musical style in which I also feel
very much at home.
I.L. But what about
your Respighi recording ambitions?
A.: I had proposed
both Respighi’s operas Marie Victoire
and La campana sommersa to Marco
Polo long ago, but there was no chance
of recording them since they involved
two CDs each and major vocal forces.
Regrettably Marco Polo also considered
that these works were "too obscure".
Fortunately, these two Respighi operas
have now been performed and recorded:
La campana’s live CD was released
very recently by the Accord label. Marie
Victoire was beautifully staged
at the Rome Opera in January (2004)
and broadcast on various stations. I
felt saddened though that the producers
credited themselves with having rediscovered
this work. The truth is that I had known
it and struggled for it over ten years
ago and I had convinced Elsa Respighi
of its worth and persuaded her that
she should give the score over to Ricordi.
In my Respighi exhibition at the Lucerne
Festival of 1979, the manuscript of
Marie Victoire figured among
its treasures. Sadly, my own Respighi
series on Marc Polo was, terminated
after six CDs. It was claimed that they
did not sell well enough. But I am delighted
that other labels, like Chandos, continue
to record Respighi, engaging splendid
artists, great orchestras and superb
sound engineers.
I.L. What about your
own compositions. Will we have the chance
to hear any – will you be recording
some?
A.: In this year of
my 60th birthday, I hoped that it could
be eventually possible to make a recording
of my three latest orchestral works:
two Concertinos for Celesta and
Piano both with strings and the latter
with percussion, and the Abysmal
Saraband for organ, strings, timpani
and tubular bells, together with some
chamber pieces. I would have recorded
them in Bratislava or in Moscow and
had thought I would find some sponsorship
here in Switzerland, a country with
seemingly plenty of money and a reputation
of being generous in promoting its home
artists. In any case orchestration ofthese
works would not have required a big
budget. We have two cultural institutes
with considerable budgets for music
sponsorship: Pro Helvetia and
the Communauté de Travail.
I first submitted my project to Pro
Helvetia but they replied that they
were not supporting CDs anymore which
was strange because I knew they were
not restricted in any way as to what
they could support. For years, Pro
Helvetia has suffered organisation
crises and its main difficulty seems
to be to define itself anew. At Pro
Helvetia they seem unable to resolve
their internal problems and we Swiss
artists suffer accordingly. Communauté,
another rich organisation that supports
a CD portrait series of contemporary
Swiss composers, among many projects,
was equally discouraging. I was told
that my musical style actually did not
match the style of the Swiss composer’s
series. This saddened me because they
even admitted they had not heard any
of my compositions anyway. It seems
to me you have to be a great international
star to impress them!
I.L. What compositions
have you been working on recently?
A.: My latest completed
work is the incidental music for a free
and modernised stage adaptation of The
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
performed by a Zurich theatre company
of students. As usual, it’s a score
conceived for a realistic instrumental
ensemble (its suite could be performed
in concert), but for budget reasons
I recorded it with quite similar-sounding
synthetic sounds. The score for last
year’s production (a piece called The
Island, based on themes taken from
Robinson Crusoe and A Midsummer
Night’s Dream) was performed exceptionally
by a live ensemble conducted by myself.
This sort of performance will be repeated
next year.
I.L. And what about
your chamber music?
A.: Yes, I have written
some chamber pieces like a Wind Quintet
and a Brass Quintet. This autumn
I will start composing a solo piece
for the great harpsichordist Jory Vinikour.
It is a great honour that he has asked
a piece of mine after having listened
to my works. To complete my series of
Concertinos with strings, I envisage
that I will compose one for harpsichord
and another for Ondes Martenot. One
of my incidental suites on Russian themes,
for a smaller ensemble, has even been
performed in a matinée
concert at the Zurich Opera, where,
on another occasion, both my Mussorgsky
adaptations were also performed. Other
of my chamber works are based on earlier
incidental suites and some of them are
quite funny, nevertheless, I write them
with the same engaged seriousness as
writing concert pieces. Sketches of
a Chamber Symphony and a Chamber
Opera also lie in my drawer, but I reckon
I will only find time for these after
my 65th year, when I officially
become a pensioner.
I.L. Are there any
other compositions of yours that you
would like to mention?
A: Among my various
orchestrations and transcriptions, there
are two cycles of songs by Mussorgsky
(Songs an Dances of Death and
Sunless), arranged for two different
kinds of chamber groups), four cycles
of songs by Respighi (also for various
ensembles) and a small-orchestra version
of a series of four-hand piano pieces
by Respighi, which will be issued soon
on the Italian label Inedita,
conducted by Maestro Roberto Diem Tigani.
There is also a string quartet adaptation
of a cycle of songs by Hugo Wolf and
Othmar Schoeck and, recently, a String
sextet version of Brahms’ Vier ernste
Gesänge.
I.L. Finally what music
do you like to listen to?
A.: I listen to many
recordings. Since I collect them I am
aware that one can learn more about
music history and stylistics than studying
at Conservatories. At present I am listening
to a splendid CD reissue of Elvis Presley’s
masters of the 1950s and 1960s. For
me, he is one of the 20th
Century’s vocal giants like Ima Sumac,
Maria Callas and Edith Piaf. Let me
also add Marilyn Monroe, even though
she has not made such a great quantity
of recordings
Following the above
interview, Adriano sent me a copy of
his stage music suite, The Body Snatchers,
scored in eight short movements, for
voices, percussion, keyboards and strings.
Inspired by the film, the Invasion
of the Body Snatchers it is quite
clearly cinematic and the composer cleverly
achieves a big cinematic sound from
quite limited forces. The names of the
movements are suggestive enough: Prelude,
Neurosis, Symbiosis, Vision, Panic in
the Tunnel, Survivor’s Waltz, The
Deed, and Finale. The influence of Bernard
Herrmann, Franz Waxman and all the old
Universal horror movies is obvious as
well as Adriano’s own original
voice. Much is written and performed
with
tongue-firmly-in-cheek.
Ian Lace
