An Italian Prelude for Thanksgiving that has nothing to do with Thanksgiving

Can you think of any classical music having to do with Thanksgiving?  I can think of only one, and that's Earl George's decent Thanksgiving Overture of which I was unable to find a recording.  In lieu of that piece I've decided instead to Give my Thanks to IMSLP for helping me discover new works at the touch of a button, including my most recent discovery, the mid-19th century Italian pianist-composer Stefano Golinelli.  Music historians like to pretend that no worthy instrumental music was written in Italy between Boccherini (?) and the Casella-Respighi-Malipiero collective, but as guys like Giuseppe Martucci keep reminding us there's always more to life than what they taught you in Stuff 101.  Golinelli helps fill a hole in my personal understanding of Italian instrumental music, that of the era of Brahms and late Schumann, and his piano works are typical of the best pianistic traditions of the 1840's and 1850's, or at least as far as I've heard, which is five of his 24 Preludes, op. 69, the second of his prelude sets.  These preludes are part of the grand tradition of preludes in each major and minor key that that darned Bach guy started in the 18th century, and once again Golinelli's variations on the form prove that there's always room for one more really long cycle of preludes.

Unlike the Chopin Preludes, Golinelli kicks off the set relaxed and amiable.  The post-Chopin years were quite fruitful in harmonic and rhythmic malleability, the former seen in the left hand's sliding chromatic triads and the latter in the right hand's offset beat.  There's a fine discipline in this writing, as each hand never breaks their respective characters and the right never uses more than two notes at a time (and very prudently, at that).  This combination of ambling textures and tentative lyricism makes for a curiously wistful mood, a mildly daring way to start off a long cycle of pieces, especially so considering that most of the 24 Preludes I've seen come flying out of the gate.  The prelude also endears itself to me because I can't resist any piece that reminds me of the "Nocturne" from Grieg's Lyric Pieces, op. 54.  The YouTube upload has both this prelude and five others from the set, all of them worthy of a spin and proving once again that pianists shouldn't leave any stones unturned.

Oh, heck, let's also Give Thanks to YouTube for being endlessly generous, including offering this delightful Golinelli Tarantella, a fine accomplishment considering that Tarantellas are rarely delightful:

Happy Thanksgiving from Forgotten Leaves!

~PNK

P.S.  Don't you just love the word "ventiquattro"?

Rieti's Crumb of a Lullaby

After much rumination I regret to announce that I don't "get" Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994).  A man who saw the entirety of the 20th century pass before him, his grew out of the post-WWI Italian Avant-Garde and honed a semi-ironic Neoclassical voice, only deepening his own groove long after his work became marginalized in an uncaring America.  He's one of those rare cases where I have trouble telling whether or not he's serious or ironic in his mature style, a burbling, deceptively simple approach that is as close as one can get to a Neoclassical counterpart to Max Reger's swiftly tilting Romanticism.  A charitable interneter uploaded a bunch of his piano works to Scorser, Russia's response to IMSLP's copyright crackdowning, and you can click here to stick a toe in Rietian waters (but only click the "PDF" buttons).  I've managed to record a few particularly accomplished miniatures, including these two works from his 6 Short Pieces (1932), "Elegy" and "Barcarole":

Both of those works exhibit his mature style with grace and unexpected beauty, though they occasionally swoop through their chord changes a bit quickly for my taste.  The third piece I recorded comes from a decade earlier, the opening to his Avant-Garde miniature set Briciole (literally "Crumbs").

One of a handful of his works in the public domain (available here as a Google Books scan), Briciole is the most available works from his striking early days as a Futurist.  Featuring a satirical blend of Chopin and Debussy, a Marionette dance and two pieces about music boxes, the "Berceuse" is the best and easiest to advertise of the set.  Using a simple, hypnotic rhythmic structure, Rieti bets all his chips on pinging, clustered harmonies and plays to win.  The audience is given a stepwise melody to follow, meaning that thick chords, such as the mid-register clusters in measure 3 don't seem like cheap special effects, and liberal pedal use brings out the nocturnal mystery of his textures.  The slightly differing, icy arpeggios up high are a particularly subtle effect, high enough that holding down the pedal blurs them enough to the point that the listener can't tell how they differ but know something's up.  The lullaby has no real conclusion, just a variation and final sparkle as the sleeper falls into the Deep.  While I can't say I'll become a huge fan of Rieti his Berceuse is a strange and inviting window into the hall of mirrors that was inter-war European experimentalism, though ultimately it may lead to an entirely unseen realm.

~PNK

A Gracious Nod to Chopin (with some ungraciousness later)

There.

In 16 measly bars, Chopin whipped out his shallowest overplayed work.  In a set of 24 inventive, exquisitely crafted preludes this is the most played (after the "Raindrop", of course), and that kind of stinks.  All those harmonic subtleties and explorations of piano textures can't fight for air next to Ol' Catchy Tune, and countless kiddie piano recitals have helped it dig its claws further into the rep.  One of the fine bunch of Italian composers to revitalize Italian instrumental music at the beginning of the 20th century, Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) saw the ditty and inspiration struck.  He'd been writing quirky atonal music at the time, and his Two Contrasts, op. 31 starts with a fine homage to the A-Major Menace:

With a few extra bars and a bunch of extra subtleties, Casella turns the prelude on a wry ear.  You could make a point that all of 19th century salon music owes its livelihood to Chopin, as he infused a lot of creativity and emotional depth to a previously shallow genre of music - Casella infuses that with anise and absinthe.  All the original architecture is there in spirit; he just enriches it with extended tertian fuzziness.  You may notice at the top that this is called Grazioso, or "gracious" for the Anglo-inclined.  I'll let you guess what the other movement is called - it should be apparent when it starts.

~PNK

Deer, Police, Niccolò

I love a good anthology, and in 1988 the great Italian publisher Ricordi released the Antologia di Autori Contemporanei, a who's-who of contemporary Italian composers who submitted short piano works, many of them written for the collection.  I'll get back to this collection with a few more leaves but today's is by Niccolò Castiglioni (1932-1996), a serialist who had a fascination with the upper frequencies of human hearing.  Near the end of his career he loosened up a bit on the serialism thing, and that happened to coincide with this collection, producing Das Reh im Wald.

(Click for larger view)

Das Reh im Wald (The Deer in the Woods) is simply a series of chords, none more than four notes, played very slowly.  Despite its simplicity the chords are tightly organized, and probably contradicts my previous statement about loosening up on serialism (though serial analysis without knowing the row beforehand is frighteningly difficult and largely pointless).  The cyclical nature of composing with rows is met by a set of four meters, endlessness seeing endlessness eye to eye.  It's very fitting for the subject matter, a calm being wandering through deep, chartless foliage.  The piece has no conventional arc, but despite its atonality there are moments of tension and climax, such as when two perfect fifths are offset by a ninth in bar 9 (Numerology?  Who cares?).  A glance may indicate this piece is easy to play, but it is surprisingly tricky, revealing not only inconsistencies in your touch but also in your piano.  Before I found a professional recording I made a YouTube performance, and my final cut took about 20 takes (and still isn't perfect).  So here's a pro doing the hard work for me:

This piece isn't Niccolò's first attempt, however.  I got a bout of déjà vu when I found Reh as I was already a fan of his infinitely charming piano travelogue Come io passo l'estate (How I Spent the Summer), detailing his vacation in the Italian Alps with his family.  The suite was written for young pianists, and is the first piece of his I know of that breaks from serialism.  Movement 8, Antonio Ballista Asleep in the Police Station, uses slow quiet chords, but the sonorities are denser and are very reminiscent of jazz.  Notice how the last measure is two major thirds offset by a whole step, and the first measure is three major thirds offset by whole steps (with one note overlapping).  As with the open fifths of Reh, Antonio has a peak in measure 12 with an eight-note split-5th/split-7th stack.  No YouTube performance for this one, but the recording I would recommend is by the British composer Thomas Adès on his album Thomas Adès - Piano.  His is the only recording that drops the Avant-Garde pretense and enjoys the piece as good ol' childhood wonder.

(Click for larger view)

~PNK