Dallapiccola was frugal
compositionally and it’s a measure of
that level of concision that his entire
work for piano, and for violin and piano
duo, should occupy a bare seventy minutes
– six pieces of music. They span the
years 1935-1956 and though he published
nothing before 1932 they can be considered
essentially the fruits of his mid period.
The Sonatina canonica
su capricci di Paganini was his
first work for solo piano. It’s a tightly
argued homage to Paganini and written
in four short movements. The opening
plays on a contrast between limpid treble
delicacy and a more obviously pointed
statement of Paganinian melody before
returning in a gentle arc to the opening
flecked statements. He takes care to
present a subtly harmonised Paganini
theme in the slow movement – two minutes
in length – and ends with a "wrong-key"
march to bring some sportive humour
to the proceedings.
Dallapiccola recycled
material from his successful 1948 ballet
Marsia for concert and instrumental
use. In the following year, for example,
he compiled a three-movement piece for
solo piano, which is recorded here.
This shows an intense immersion in impressionist
techniques – quite remarkably so for
the time – and the opening is a veritable
wash of impressionist colour and texture.
A motoric study acts as some muscular
ballast in the middle movement whilst
in the last there is a definable play
between an uneasy stasis and more tensile,
active figures.
For his daughter’s
eighth birthday he wrote Quaderno
musicale di Annalibera and it proves
to be attractive if not necessarily
memorable. Rhythmic insistence jostles
with a warmly stated canon and equally
a certain amount of reflective, rather
withdrawn writing (try the Ombre
section).
We go back to 1935
for Inni, his first published
instrumental piece, which was written
for three pianos - a rather unreasonable
demand here met via multi-tracking by
Roberto Prosseda. Jaunty baroque haunts
this one, not least the opening and
the last of the three movements, which
is a bouncy dialogue. The Due studi
derive from a documentary on the life
of Piero della Francesca which, though
it failed to appear, gave Dallapiccola
the material for these two studies,
a Sarabande and a Fanfare and Fugue.
In the Sarabande the piano remains rather
elliptical and reserved whilst the violin
pirouettes over it and this forms an
immediate contrast with the second movement
which thrives on decisive angularity
of attack.
Finally there is Tartiniana
seconda, once more for violin and
piano. This was written in 1956 and
further cements his affinity with Italian
violinistic lore. As he showed with
his tribute to Paganini the identification
with earlier musics was strong. Here
the fluid and lyric Pastorale work well
with the evocation of Tartini’s style
in the Bourée – a procedure once
or twice removed. This in turn leads
on to the double stopping and variations
of the finale. One feels the tribute
is a protean one not a reductive pastiche.
The note and performances
are equally persuasive. There are few
outrageous technical demands though
considerable ones on matters of stylistic
judgement and they are all met with
authority. As a body of work it occupies
a relatively slender place in Dallapiccola’s
output but it certainly reflects his
concerns and inspirations – and also
his reworkings and self-borrowings –
with appreciably enjoyable results.
Jonathan Woolf
Roberto Prosseda (piano) 
