Alessandro LONGO (1864-1945)
Suite, Op.62 (1910) [15:18]
Ferruccio BUSONI (1866-1924)
Suite, K 88 (1878) [17:46]
Antonio SCONTRINO (1850-1922)
Sei Bozzetti (1909) [13:56]
Giuseppe FRUGATTA (1860-1933)
Suite, Op.44 (1901) [17:29]
Sergio Bosi (clarinet), Riccardo Bartoli (piano)
rec. 28-30 May 2008, Teatro Raffaello Sanzio, Urbino, Italy
NAXOS 8.572399 [64:29]
The unfamiliarity of three of the names at the head of this review is not
perhaps well-calculated to attract the casual browser; should that browser
grow a bit less casual and work out that best-known of the four composers,
Busoni, is represented by a work written when he was twelve, expectations
will not, perhaps, be very high.
And, in truth, there isn’t anything to be heard here that is likely to take
the world by storm. But there is much that makes for thoroughly enjoyable
listening and nothing that is less than interesting. To varying degrees all
the works belong broadly in the idiom of late Romanticism, growing out of
the German tradition but leavened with distinctively Italian elements and
- particularly in the case of Scontrino - some French influences. There are
lots of attractive melodies, some sophisticated harmonies and some finely
expressive music.
All three of those less familiar names belong to composers who played a significant
role in the musical life of their day. Alessandro Longo was one of the earliest
modern scholars of Scarlatti; he established a Domenico Scarlatti Society
in Naples early in the 1890s, and subsequently published 11 volumes containing
544 of Scarlatti’s sonatas (1906-10) and a monograph on the composer (1913).
His ‘L’ numbers were for a long while the standard system for referencing
Scarlatti’s sonatas. Longo taught piano at the Conservatory in Naples and
was himself very active as a performer. His suite for clarinet and piano was
one of a series for piano and wind instruments; it is in three movements,
the second of which, an intermezzo, contains some pellucid melodies and some
adroit piano writing; in the third movement (Allegro con spirito) is
an attractive dialogue, the interplay of clarinet and piano is full of interesting
touches and some intriguing changes of tempo. The writing everywhere is highly
competent and the results, if relatively lightweight, make for engaging listening.
Born in Sicily, after studying at the Palermo Conservatory Antonio Scontrino
worked extensively as virtuoso player of the double-bass. From 1871-1873 he
studied in Munich. He later worked in Milan as a teacher, before being appointed
Professor of counterpoint and composition back at the Palermo Conservatory
in 1891 and a year later was also appointed Professor at the Istituto Musicale
in Florence. His Sei Bozzetti (Six Sketches) were written when the
composer was approaching his sixtieth birthday and they breathe experience
and maturity. Full of complex rhythmic and harmonic manoeuvres, they deserve
to be better known than they are. The first, Adelaide, contains some
lush writing for the clarinet, beautifully played by Sergio Bosi; Didone,
the second, is in the long line of musical responses to Dido’s abandonment
and suicide, though the music is perhaps more sad than suicidal - at any rate
until its close. Valser is thoroughly Germanic, though perhaps it isn’t
only knowledge of the composer’s nationality that makes one hear some rather
Italianate quasi-operatic inflections in places; the fourth piece, Gondoliera
begins languorously, and with some audible debts to French impressionism,
but builds to a vigorous conclusion. The fifth, Speranza, packs a good
deal of emotional power and the suite closes with Letizia (Joy), which
lives up to its title, full of vivacity and energy … and demanding considerable
skill of its performers.
Giuseppe Frugatta has perhaps been even more comprehensively forgotten than
Longo and Scontrino. He taught piano at the Milan Conservatory from 1891-1930
while also active as a soloist and a composer. More than one of his compositions
won a significant international prize for him; he wrote some fine and once
very popular operatic transcriptions for piano; but he has no entry in the
current Grove nor, indeed, in Marc Vignal’s Dizionario della Musica Classica
Italiana (2002). The six movements of his suite are elegant and expressive,
full of music which, while very much of its time, should also appeal to most
modern listeners. The thoughtful, slightly troubled Romance, the second movement
of the suite, and the witty Scherzino (the fourth) are both of them rewarding
and the closing Tarantelle is colourfully inventive.
Though it may have been written when its composer was not yet into his teens,
Busoni’s six-movement suite is a work with some real emotional depth. Its
opening Improvvisata is thoughtful and questioning, the following Barcarola
has a melancholy sweetness and some dignified melodic lines; at the heart
of the suite is Elegia, a lyrical movement that is more than merely
mournful, with its sense both of letting go and of fond memory; Danza campestre
(Rural dance) is a pretty, sprightly affair; Tema variato is a
miniature of some compositional subtlety - especially considering the age
of the composer - and the whole closes with a Serenata which has moments
of astringency amidst its general (uncloying) sweetness. This was a 12 year
old of real promise and already possessed of considerable maturity!
Throughout, the playing of Sergio Bosi is exemplary, always sympathetic to
the writing, unfazed by any of the technical demands and capable of real wit
and panache; his accompanist, Riccardo Bartoli is excellent, even if the recording
balance occasionally seems to thrust the clarinet a little too far forward
at the piano’s expense. On the whole, however, the sound is good.
Glyn Pursglove