A quartet of the highest order, this CD exposes the extraordinary
musical flair and technical skill of the Quartetto di Venezia as they
perform the works of these two twentieth century Italian composers. They
play with zeal and intelligence, making this is a disc to treasure.
From a musical family, the Italian composer of the
‘Generazione dell’Ottanta’, Alfredo Casella entered the
Conservatoire de Paris in 1896 to study piano with Louis Diémer and
conducting under Gabriel Fauré. After the Paris years and travelling
to Germany and Russia, Casella acquired an eclectic style and a penchant for
chromatic dissonance and stylistic experiment. He founded La Società
Nazionale di Musica with Malipiero and the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio in
1917 and revived the music of Vivaldi. Casella was eager to understand and
embrace Italy’s post-Paganini musical style and fused this with his
cosmopolitan influences.
Giving Russian bombast and German heaviness an Italian lilt and
poetry, Casella forged his own characteristic style which the Quartetto di
Venezia sensitively evokes. The influence of Stravinsky and Schoenberg
reverberates throughout
Concerto per archi (Op. 40) and
Cinque
Pezzi (Op. 34), but they’re certainly not a sentimental gushes. In
his 1922 essay entitled ‘What is Art’, Casella suggests that:
‘Art in one way or another, signifies “variation” and
every artist “varies” his predecessor’. In this way,
Casella absorbed the styles and ideas of old masters, but does not merely
imitate: he renders new with the particularities of his time, environment
and personal experiences. Fundamental to understanding Casella’s
compositional purpose, is his emphatic opening to this essay, where he
asserts: “
Disregarding all past definitions of art, be they
religious, moral or philosophic, let us postulate that art is
Life in
the highest sense of the word, seeing that it is a pure creative activity of
the human spirit.” Understanding Casella’s artistic instinct,
the Quartetto di Venezia unveils the amoral beauty of his music.
In the
Concerto per archi, Op. 40, they play with
vigour and conviction exuding an admixture of grit and melodious lyricism.
Creating a sort of earthy-ethereal sound, the Quartetto di Venezia
successfully communicate Casella’s intuitive vision. To open the
wraithlike second movement, the quartet evokes a haunting, diaphanous beauty
with the glassy sounds of violins and viola on the backbone of a pizzicato
bass line. Almost imagists in their ability to conjure a peculiar picture in
the imagination of the listener, the musicians here are sublime and bring to
mind the poetry of Ezra Pound. This contrasts with the utterly gripping last
movement which hints at the baroque. With their characteristically majestic
tone, the quartet brings out the rich colours and daring fancies of this
piece. These musicians are never distracted and retain a sense of the
expansive architecture and overall arch of the piece. They allow the
listener to absorb the caliginous beauty of the writing and not be
obfuscated by the more scrambling or atonally jarring sections. I must also
add that Giancarlo di Vacri’s performance on the viola is especially
memorable.
Beginning with a frantic cacophony, held together by a percussive
pizzicato - excellently performed by Angelo Zanin on the cello - and
interspersed with limpid moments of tranquil song-like reflections,
Casella’s
Cinque Pezzi, Op. 34 is like a mirage
of self-reflective, refracting segments. The second movement has an
unsettling rocking rhythm and the quartet eerily closes in on the listener
who feels like William Blake’s ‘little girl lost’. This is
swiftly followed by a carnivalesque
danse macabre. One thinks of
Saint-Saëns, both of his own
Danse Macabre and the
Fossils movement from
Le carnival des animaux. It makes for a
chilling recall of the shadowy second movement. It finishes with a jaunty
inversion of the night-circus dance. This piece is a layered gossamer, an
internal dialogue exposing Casella’s very own stream of
consciousness.
Guido Turchi’s
Concerto breve is both
tight and concise. Written in memory of Bela Bartók, this relates to
Casella’s
Concerto per archi in that it is like a large
architectural structure which leaves free scope for imaginative expansion.
The cello plummets into its woody depths and with vibrato and glissando, the
atmospheric fabric of the piece is heightened. As it progresses it unravels
a convoluting and layered texture which is constantly in motion. Yet at the
end of the
Allegro it seems still, like a feline creature waiting to
pounce. After vivacious pizzicato flurries and alarming alacrity, the piece
slinks away rather unexpectedly. The Quartetto Vivaldi also recorded this
piece in 1957 and it is worth comparing the two performances.
With an official recognition from the President of the Republic of
Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, the well-established and highly acclaimed
Quartetto di Venezia celebrates their twenty-fifth anniversary season. In
this CD this chamber group confidently adds to its already varied and
extensive repertoire which ranges from Boccherini to Saint-Saëns and is
a most welcome new release.
Lucy Jeffery
