Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Pizzetti

Horszowski, Pizzetti, and a Forgotten Generation

One of the greatest pianists of his generation serves a forgotten master of “la generazione dell’Ottanta” on this week’s “Music from Marlboro.”

But what generation is that, exactly?

Mieczyslaw Horszowski had one of the longest careers of any performing artist. A pupil of Theodor Leschetizky, who studied with Carl Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, Horszowski played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in public for the first time in 1901.

His first teacher was his mother, who herself had studied with Karol Mikuli, a pupil of Frederic Chopin. So Horszowski’s artistry was forged at the intersection of two great traditions.

He may have been small of stature, even in maturity, standing barely five feet tall – his limited reach ruled out some of the more virtuosic repertoire – but his performance history was more diverse than his discography might suggest.

Horszowski joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1942 and remained there for over 50 years, giving his final lesson only a week before his death in 1993, one month shy of his 101st birthday. Among his pupils were Murray Perahia, Richard Goode, Peter Serkin and Cecile Licad.

He was distinguished by lineage, longevity and legacy, then. However, what made him truly exceptional as a performer was his ability to bring out the poetry in anything he touched. That certainly proves to be the case in his performance of the Piano Trio in A by Ildebrando Pizzetti, a romantic gem that somehow rolled off the musical map.

A contemporary of Ottorino Respighi, Alfredo Casella and Gian Francesco Malipiero, Pizzetti lived from 1880 to 1968. Collectively, they formed the so-called “Generation of the Eighties.” These artists of the post-Puccini era made their mark in the concert halls, as opposed to the opera houses – certainly a change of pace for Italy.

Pizzetti was probably best-known as an associate of Gabrielle d’Annunzio, providing incidental music for d’Annunzio’s plays, setting his libretto for the tragedy “Fedra,” and writing a musical setpiece for the silent film classic “Cabiria” (after a d’Annunzio screenplay).

The Piano Trio in A, written in 1925, is one of Pizzetti’s most autobiographical pieces. The work reflects the unexpected joy the composer felt at finding love again with the woman who would become his second wife (she’s represented by the violin; he by the cello), following the untimely death of his first. There is plenty of drama, lyricism and warmth throughout the 30-minute piece, which is very seldom performed.

Horszowski played it at the Marlboro Music Festival in 1968, with violinist Pina Carmirelli and cellist Leslie Parnas.

As if that isn’t enticement enough, the hour will begin with Horszowski and the Marlboro Festival Orchestra conducted by Felix Galimir in 1982 – the pianist a mere 90 years-old at the time – in the Keyboard Concerto No. 7 in G minor, BWV 1058, by Johann Sebastian Bach.

All hail Horszowski! Mieczyslaw Horszowski plays Bach and Pizzetti on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTO: Mieczyslaw Horszowski (center) with Marlboro co-founder Rudolf Serkin and an up-and-coming Ruth Laredo

November 6, 2019
Respighi & Pizzetti: Italian Masters at Marlboro

We’re headed back to the ‘80s for this week’s “Music from Marlboro” – the 1880s, that is.

We’ll hear music by two composers of “la generazione dell’Ottanta” (literally, “the Generation of the ‘80s”), artists of the post-Puccini era, born around 1880, who made their reputations largely in the concert halls, as opposed to in the opera houses. This would have been a change of pace for Italy.

The best known of these, of course, was Ottorino Respighi. Respighi may have written twelve operas – can you name them? – but unquestionably it is for his roof-raising tone poems and time-traveling suites for chamber orchestra that he is most celebrated.

Respighi’s “Il Tramonto” (or “The Sunset”), composed in 1918, was inspired by a poem of Shelley, which tells of a pair of crepuscular lovers who meet in the woods at twilight. The young woman wakes to find that the man has passed in the night.

We’ll hear a performance by Marlboro musicians on tour at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, in 2010, including Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, violinists Ira Levin and Yonah Zur, violist Beth Guterman, and cellist Saeunn Thorsteindottir.

Ildebrando Pizzetti was best known as an associate of the poet and playwright Gabriele d’Annunzio, providing incidental music for a number of d’Annunzio’s plays and setting his drama “Fedra” as an opera. Pizzetti’s Piano Trio in A major, written in 1925, is big music with big things to say. There is plenty of drama, lyricism, and warmth throughout the 30 minute piece, which is almost never heard.

It was performed, however, at the Marlboro Music Festival in 1968, by violinist Pina Carmirelli, cellist Leslie Parnas, and that venerable poet of the keyboard, Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

Temperatures will rise into the ‘80s, on this week’s “Music from Marlboro” – chamber music performances from the legendary Marlboro Music Festival – this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

June 13, 2018
Italian Composers & the Seasons

“La generazione dell’ottanta” is a label used to describe that group of Italian composers born around 1880. By and large, they are remembered for their contributions to orchestral and instrumental music, as opposed to opera, though their contributions to the latter form were not inconsiderable. The group included Franco Alfano, Alfredo Casella, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and the best known of the bunch, Ottorino Respighi.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll enjoy seasonal works by three of them.

Respighi wrote his “Poema autunnale,” for violin and orchestra, in 1926. He prefaced his score with the following descriptive program:

“A sweet melancholy pervades the poet’s feelings, but a joyful vintner’s song and the rhythm of a Dionysiac dance disturb his reverie. Fauns and Bacchantes disperse at the appearance of Pan, who walks alone through the fields under a gentle rain of golden leaves.”

The work is meditative, lovely and uplifting in the manner of Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending.”

For a composer who disliked sonata form, Malipiero certainly wrote a lot of symphonies – 11 numbered symphonies, in all – though largely on his own terms. Two of these were inspired by the seasons.

In the case of the Symphony No. 1, composed in 1933, the connection might be said to be analogous, as opposed to strictly programmatic. His initial plan had been to set passages from Anton Maria Lamberti’s poem, “La stagione.” Ultimately, he abandoned that design, but the idea of an annual cycle remained.

The composer subtitled the work, “In Quattro tempi, come le quattro stagioni” (“In four movements, like the four seasons”). Indeed, the first has something of a vernal flavor, with the second, according to the composer, “strong and vehement like summer,” the third autumnal, and the fourth akin to “the winter carnival season and the gaiety of snow.”

The program will open with music by Pizzetti that, while not strictly seasonal, is clearly of an autumnal cast. His “Preludio a un altro giorno” (“Prelude to Another Day”) is a fairly late piece, and rather a world-weary one, composed in 1952.

Just before writing it, Pizzetti had received a painful letter from his former teacher, Giovanni Tebaldini, then 87 and praying for death after a series of strokes left him confined to a chair, terrified to stand for fear of falling. Not surprisingly, I thought it best to listen to this one first, so that we could relax and enjoy the leaves and snow.

I hope you’ll join me for “Italian Seasoning,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll enjoy it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTOS: Pizzetti looking severe; Malipiero and Respighi enjoying la dolce vita

November 16, 2014

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS