Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Violin Concerto No.1 (1932)
Per una favola cavalleresca (1914-1915, rev. ?1920)*
Violin Concerto No.2 (1963)
Paolo Chiavacci (violin)
Orchestra Sinfonica de Roma/Francesco La Vecchia
rec. 2012/13, Auditorium Conciliazione & OSR Studios, Rome, Italy
* World première recording
NAXOS 8.573075 [69]
It is fortunate that Naxos has released many discs of the music of Gian Francesco Malipiero: his name does not trip off the tongue as that of a well-known composer. Decades ago I owned a vinyl copy of the first violin concerto but I do not remember his name later crossing my radar much if at all. The longest work on this disc is a world première recording, so indeed his works may not be as well-known as perhaps they ought to be. I had no idea that he wrote eleven symphonies and a large amount of chamber music, operas, vocal and piano music. (That is why writing reviews so often opens up a whole new world of listening pleasure.) I could not agree more with David Gallagher, who writes in the notes that on a blind listening one would not attribute these very different works to the same composer. The common strands that do point to one author may not reveal themselves on a first hearing.
The first concerto is a fine piece of writing, easily identified as written in the 1930s. It is joyful and lyrical in the true sense of the word, with long flowing melodic lines which allow the violin to shine. This work should be programmed more frequently in concerts. Surprisingly, much in the concerto seems more akin to Vaughan Williams’s pastoral writing than to anything one might attribute to an Italian sound. Even so, Malipiero occasionally clearly pays tribute to Vivaldi. (He did much to popularise Vivaldi’s music, then rather forgotten.) It is always difficult to understand what allows some works – especially those we today regard as representative of the greatest that classical music has to offer – to languish in obscurity until something or someone propels it into the light again. This concerto may only be 90 years old but it has not enjoyed the attention it deserves. It would be nice to think that it could find a new audience today and appreciation as a work of real quality.
Per una favola cavalleresca for orchestra, surprisingly, only now receives its first recording. The four-section work, which evokes Italy’s chivalric past, was written during the first world war. Was it Malipiero’s yearning for times when there was a code upheld by principles, which the devastating war was busy destroying? The booklet mentions that the music is more akin to the late-Romantic musical world of Russia and Germany, and notes the influence of French composers like Debussy and Ravel. There also are echoes of Malipiero’s compatriot Ottorino Respighi, whose Fountains of Rome come from more or less the same time. There is a wonderful sense of sweep in this music, and a real filmic quality.
The booklet explains why this work was virtually unknown until well after Malipiero’s death. It is a complex and convoluted tale. I was surprised that Malipiero did not get rid of the score along with what he characterised as his ‘unmentionable opera’ which these ‘scenes’ were intended to be part of. A further complication emerges: in fact, he never destroyed the opera but claimed he had! We are lucky this music has been rescued from the oblivion it has languished in. It has much to recommend it, and audiences might very much enjoy hearing it in the concert hall.
Whether listeners really find it difficult to imagine that the first concerto and Per una favola cavalleresca have the same composer, they will surely even more surprised that the second violin concerto is also by Malipiero. This work is from a completely different sound world, with an infinitely more contemporary feel to it. Thirty years may separate the two concertos but they are light years apart in style and content. As the notes explain, by the 1950s Malipiero had moved away from the mellifluous sounds that are so much part of both the previous works. Via several other works, he had developed a style more in keeping with the angular style and dissonant sounds of other composers writing at the time. But if we are to believe the composer, then he wanted to resume the conversation that the first concerto was having. It emerged through a portal to become the second concerto by taking on musical developments between the 1930s and 1960s along the way. It is a much more serious work than the first concerto, not that I wish to imply the first was not serious. It is stripped of the mellifluence of the first, and the tunes are not as lush. Indeed, it is more a canvas of desolation but it is not without an almost savage beauty in a bleak landscape. The end comes as a surprise: the conversation the composer spoke about is seemingly interrupted mid-sentence.
Soloist Paolo Chiavacci is a powerful advocate for the concertos, and Francesco La Vecchia leads his Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma in a finely measured performance of all three works. The recording allows us to re-evaluate the concertos and introduces us to the hitherto unrecorded orchestral gem. Plaudits are due all round.
Steve Arloff
Previous review: Rob Barnett
