Francesco Santoliquido (1883-1971)
Violin Sonata in A minor (1924)
Chiarità lunare
Rêverie
Trio Fantasia ‘La Favola di Helga’ (1910, arr. piano trio by Aldo Cantarini)
Aria Antica
Acquforti Tunisine
Notturno
Piccola Ballata
Giardini Notturni
Ex Humo ad Sidera
Gran Duo Italiano, Federica Del Bagno (cello)
rec. 2021, Centro Studi Musicali Rosario Scalero, Polla, Italy
BRILLIANT 96589 [65]
Francesco Santoliquido led a peripatetic life, spending over a decade in Tunisia before returning to Italy where he largely disgraced himself with cheap shot anti-Modernism, which embraced all the usual suspects. It’s perhaps appropriate that his name is now best remembered for the piano trio of his third wife, Ornella. The recordings of the Santoliquido Trio (Ornella Puliti Santoliquido, violinist Arrigo Pellicia and cellist Massimo Amfitheatrof) have been reissued of late and are fine examples of Italian chamber playing. I trust Francesco appreciated the irony of his wife being a pupil of Casella and recording Mendelssohn; but probably not.
After which, it would be entertaining to report that, for all his political and cultural stupidity, Santoliquido was a composer of distinct gifts. Entertaining, but not true. Seldom have I waded through an album of such relentless mediocrity. The Violin Sonata was dedicated to Mario Corti and has some value for its thematic material cast in very conventional sonata form. There’s a relaxed slow movement and an ardent finale that has some terse drama. I listened to it twice, most recently two hours ago, and I can’t remember a damn thing about it.
Two brief works for violin and piano follow, Chiarità lunare and the Rêverie, the former lightly varied in mood, the latter lighter and treble-flecked. The Trio Fantasia ‘La Favola di Helga’ derives from an opera of the same name and was arranged by Aldo Cantarini for piano trio. It’s early and ripely romantic and perfectly charming. The Aria Antica for cello and piano is quietly sombre. The remainder of the programme is devoted to music for solo piano. There are two Acquforti Tunisine, the first of which, La Notte Sahariana, sounds promising but retreats into a dappled lyricism more Notte than Sahariana. The sleeve note writer finds orientalism in the Notturno but I find merely Chopin and the Piccola Ballata is nineteenth century salon music, and as far from orientalism as it’s possible to get. By this point I began to wonder if I was living in a parallel critical universe. Even the much touted – or, at least, mildly touted – Ex Humo ad Sidera is little more than Lisztian drama.
I certainly can’t fault the performers, who give their all, or the recording which is quite acceptable. Perhaps Santoliquido’s anti-modernism was inherent and has something to do with the fact that, in these works at least, he seems so incurious about the possibilities of integrating North African elements into his music. What was he doing in Tunis for all those years? If he’d been Bartók or Cecil Sharp he’d have bought some wax cylinders and recorded local musicians. But no.
Maybe you can get more out of this disc than I can.
Jonathan Woolf
