Bazzini

It is a meaningful sign of the times that Astor Piazzolla is arguably one of the most frequently performed composers on the contemporary musical stage, even though he probably never aimed at writing “classical” music. True, one of the fundamental encounters of his life was with composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger, who mentored many of the most important avant-garde musicians of the second half of the twentieth century. And, under her guidance, Piazzolla did attempt to express his personality through the language of Western contemporary music. The results, of course, were very good, since nobody could question Piazzolla’s talent. Yet, when Piazzolla performed one of the tangos he had already written to his professor, she exclaimed: “Astor, all your classical pieces are well written, but the true Piazzolla sound is here, never leave it behind!”. And if the language of Piazzolla’s music does not correspond to that of the coeval European avantgardes, neither does it conform to the standards of the Argentinian tango tradition. It is precisely for his utter originality that Astor Piazzolla rightfully claimed and obtained a place in the pantheon of twentieth-century classical music. But it is also this originality that may puzzle those attempting to classify him within one of the established musical categories.

Luca N. Stradivari (1993) is a composer and pianist of his own music. After he graduated at the University of Nottingham, he started to hold composition seminars and concerts in China since 2018. He writes: “The first part of this release is marked by the performance of The King is Dead – shipwreck for violin and piano. A reworking case for duet – Luca N. Stradivari on the piano and Luca Fanfoni on the violin – of the concert for wind orchestra and violin solo based on the First World War, performed in 2012 in Salò on lake Garda for its annual music festival.

Antonio Bazzini, violinist and composer, was born in Brescia on 11 March 1818 and died in Milan on 10 February. The works for string quartet performed by Quartetto Bazzini on this recording are No. 1 without an opus number and No. 3 Op. 76. On listening to these two works, we can understand and appreciate Bazzini’s mastery as a composer: the solo parts are skilfully distributed among the string instruments, and we can detect an influence of French and German instrumental music, filtered by his creative genius, which is never predictable or recognisable.

Antonio Bazzini, violinist and composer, was born in Brescia on March 11, 1818. At the age of eight, he began to study the violin under the guidance of Fausto Camesani (or Camisani); at thirteen, he published his first composition; and at seventeen, he had six symphonies for great orchestra performed at the theatre of Brescia. In 1836, when he was eighteen, he was auditioned by Paganini, who encouraged him to embark on a career as a concert performer. From that time onwards, he was constantly successful. He held concerts in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, England and Belgium. He met many contemporary composers, one of whom was Robert Schumann, who praised him saying: “Since many years no virtuoso has given me such an intimate joy and such pleasant, happy moments as Antonio Bazzini has done. It seems to me that he is too little known, and that, even here, he has not been appreciated as much as he deserves.” With this album the Quartetto Bazzini completes the recording of Bazzini’s string quartets (originally printed in the nineteenth century) started in 2018 with the previous album (TC810202).

Antonio Bazzini, born in Brescia in 1818, was one of the great violinist-composers of the 19th century. After encouragement from Paganini following an encounter in 1836, he lived the life of a touring virtuoso for many years. Though he composed in larger forms, he is best remembered as the composer of numerous salon pieces for violin and piano, the most famous being La Ronde des lutins (The Dance of the Goblins), but also including many character pieces of various descriptions. Eventually returning to Italy, he was appointed first professor and then director of the Milan Conservatory and was a teacher of Mascagni and Puccini.