Neima Ezza Piccolo Principe

An impressive debut from a charismatic young pianist with a passion for Schumann.

The scandalous composer Carlo Gesualdo, Principe di Venosa, was also an excellent lutenist extolled by his contemporaries. At the end of the sixteenth century he received the first two prototypes of the archlute from his colleague Alessandro Piccinini in Ferrara, one of which he kept. In the absence of music for the lute by this composer of genius, Bor Zuljan has imagined the sound world of the prince’s archlute: a kaleidoscope of fabulous and extreme sonorities on this extravagant instrument, from transcriptions of his vocal and instrumental music to the astonishing chromatic compositions of the composers he is thought to have encountered in the course of his turbulent life. Includes works by C. Gesualdo, A. Piccinini, J. H. Kapsberger, P. P. Melli, C. Saracini etc.

This quartet session features the compositions of bassist Paolino Dalla Porta and pianist Stefano Battaglia, along with Kenny Wheeler's trumpet and flugelhorn solos and drummer Bill Elgart's rhythmic support. While Porta has solid technique and excellent tone, and Battaglia offers a reasonable approximation of Keith Jarrett's playing style, this date doesn't quite manage to inspire. That's mostly due to Wheeler, whose playing wavers and occasionally falters. His flugelhorn solos are more mellow, better executed and successful, but as the principal soloist outside the rhythm section, he's not always up to the task on this date.

Following the phenomenal success of Cavalleria Rusticana (1889) operas flowed rapidly from Mascagni’s pen for about a decade: L’Amico Fritz (1891), I Rantzau (1892), Guglielmo Ratcliff (1895), Silvano (1895), Zanetto (1896), and Iris (1898). With the arrival of the 20th Century the pace began to slow down: Le Maschere (1901), Amica (1905), Isabeau (1911), Parisina (1913), Lodoletta (1917), Il Piccolo Marat (1921), Pinotta (1932) and finally Nerone (1935), largely a reworking of a much earlier piece. Mascagni himself was convinced that the public’s obstinacy in preferring Cavalleria Rusticana was an injustice. Criticism of the earlier works has tended to centre on clumsy libretti and patches of weaker inspiration, while real controversy has surrounded the later pieces. Here, we are told, Mascagni tried to dress up as a modern, flirting with dissonance and ungainly vocal declamation, at the expense of his natural melodic gifts.