Donizetti: L'esule di Roma

Giovanni Sgambati led the revival of Italian orchestral music during the late 19th century. He was a favourite student of Liszt, admired by Wagner, and a pivotal figure in the emancipation of his country’s music from the dominance of bel canto opera. The Piano Concerto in G minor is a stirring and inventive work signalling a new beginning for Italian piano music on the international stage. It offers a synthesis of the possibilities of the genre, evoking Liszt, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, as Sgambati constantly transforms his thematic material to heroic effect. Sinfonia festiva is a short, confidently written work inspired by the dance-like character of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.

Muzio Clementi’s four surviving mature symphonies were never published in his lifetime and were rescued from neglect through painstaking reconstruction. His sophisticated use of counterpoint can be heard in his treatment of the tune God Save the King in the third symphony. Classical poise, drama and eloquence of expression in both works can be traced to the influence of Haydn and Mozart. Muzio Clementi’s four mature symphonies have rarely been recorded in comparison to his works for piano.

Rossini’s second masterpiece La Cenerentola premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome on the 25th of January 1817, less than a year after the first performance of his The Barber of Seville and it ́s pure, perfect Rossini. In this production, a set-up made to celebrate 200 years Rossini in Rome, Emma Dante ́s “rousing Cinderella” (Corriere della Sera) “succeeds in impressing her own contemporary vision on a classic masterpiece, in perfect symbiosis with the spirit of Rossini.” (Opera Now) “Alejo Pérez deserves the credit for an excellent ensemble and a dazzling rhythmic rendering of the Rossinian score.” (La Nazione – Il Resto del Carlino – Il Giorno)

Giovanni Sgambati, a composer admired by Wagner, was the man Busoni predicted would take Italian music ‘towards a bright new future’. Sgambati’s Symphony No. 2 is a compendium of Austro-Germanic devices whose mix of chromaticism and melodic invention is invigorating. Lost for decades, it was reconstructed by Rosalind Trübger whose performing edition is recorded here. Sinfonia epitalamio was commissioned to celebrate a royal wedding. Loosely programmatic, this beautiful work embraces the pastoral and celebratory framed in the form of a symphonic poem.

In 1959 a young Australian soprano burst upon the international scene with a sensational performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. That soprano was Joan Sutherland, and now, 50 years later, Decca celebrates the prima donna in her most acclaimed role. Decca proudly presents, in a deluxe limited-edition, the soprano's 1971 landmark recording of Donizetti's opera. All the principal singers are here caught at the pinnacle of their careers, making this, quite possibly, the most beautiful Lucia ever captured on record.