Donatoni

Franco Donatoni - Spiri, Fili, De Près, Refrain, Etwas Ruhiger im Ausdruck - Nieuw Ensemble (1988) {Etcetera KTC1053}
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© 1988 Etcetera Records B.V. | KTC 1053
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music

Donatoni makes a speciality of chamber pieces in which the players pursue and provoke each other. The sparks invariably fly, but they don't always illuminate larger perspectives. Etwas ruhiger im Ausdruck is the earliest work included. As the title leads one to expect, it's more restrained than the rest, though characteristic of all five pieces to the extent that fragmented, fugitive activity takes place within clearly defined limits. Even this is not young man's music—Donatoni was born in 1927—but it's subtle and fascinating in its inventive way with soft sonontles.

Franco Donatoni - In cauda, Portrait, Duo pour Bruno (Tamayo)
Avant-Garde, Contemporary Classical| FLAC (Tracks, No LOG, covers) | 318 MB | 71:36 | Label: Stradivarius | Released 2000 | RAR 3% Rec. |megaupload

Franco Donatoni is one of the composers schooled in Darmstadt with Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Nono and Barraque under Oliver Messiaen. Compared with this group, his music is not well represented by performers. I do not understand why. Donatoni is an excellent composer and was as prolific as Boulez or Nono. If you enjoy the work of any of the Darmstadt composers, I suggest that you would enjoy hearing Donatoni.

Donatoni creates clear textures within complex music, creating something that is (or was) definitely avant garde, while also not unnecessarily complex. Donatoni is more reserved than Stockhausen, Nono or Barraque, but less intellectual than Boulez. I admire his ability to create a situation, wherein one finds as much going on as in Boulez, but with a sharpness of contrast between the parts that is excellently clear, yet not vulgar or blunt; it is graceful but obvious.

The performances here are excellent. Arturo Tamayo, a student of Boulez in conducting, gives extreme care to the clarity of the orchestra, like Boulez. The intonation is impeccable, the chords finely balanced, the counterpoint melodic and studied. Tamayo may be slightly colder in performance than Boulez (accentuating what people usually complain about in Boulez recordings), but these performances are definitely moving. 'Portrait,' a work featuring harpsichord soloist Elizabeth Chonjnacka, shows fine contrasts between the sections. The orchestra is wonderful.

This is a live recording, and some of the recording equipment or settings could have been better. Occasionally there is mild distortion in loud sections and sometimes there is a 'hum' from one of the settings on the soundboard being up too high in the quiet sections. This is the major downfall of the recording.

However, the performances and the compositions are so excellent, that I must recommend that you snatch up this one. These are works that you might not hear if you pass this recording up, and that would be a pity. Donatoni wrote some of the best music of the second half of the twentieth century.
By Steven Rice

Who can today, like Franco Donatoni, conciliate the quality of craftsmanship with the originality of a sophisticated imaginary world?
There are not so many composers who forged a so original tool (forma a pannelli), who speech a language so detailed, who created a poetic territory so unmistakable to be immediately recognizable.
Moreover his univers has the gift of making happy perfomers because of his concret, near and evident aspect. The Franco Donatoni's long perseverance seems having brought him toward liberty and, once more, toward spontaneity: happy privilege, if any others may exist, this apparent easiness that gives to others such deep resources stubbornly reached and so seducing!
Every composer might be jealous of this extraordinary ability of realizing illusion.

Pierre Boulez

In August 2010, it will be ten years since Franco Donatoni s passing; a period of time which is now long enough to try to relate, also to younger listeners, the history of this musician who lived through the crucial problems of his time with a rare intensity and who remains an indispensable reference point in the contemporary music scene. In this monographic CD by Stradivarius, the Divertimento Ensemble and the Italian Saxophone Quartet are conducted by Sandro Gorli, who founded the Ensemble itself in 1977 and was Donatoni s pupil.

Franco Donatoni wrote glorious, sparkling music in his own avant-garde style. He was a man of contradictions. He did not always value his work and yet it is music of quality with scintillating sound. It is music of vision. At least three generations of composers studied with Donatoni. About Ligeti's music on this CD, the pieces for piano are truly unbelievable, but the Horn Trio is without a doubt one of the most important works written in the last 50 years.

Norio Sato - KO-THA (Maderna, Donatoni, Scelsi etc) (1990) {ALM Records Japan ALCD-35}
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© 1990 ALM Records Japan | ALCD-35
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music / Guitar

The winner of 1971 Tokyo International Guitar Competition, Norio Sato has been the leading figure in the field of contemporary music in Japan, both as a guitarist and as a conductor, giving world premieres of numerous works in Japan and abroad. He formed Ensemble NOMAD in 1997, and became its Music Director. He has made appearances at major contemporary music festivals around the globe, and has been awarded the Kyoto Prize, Kenzo Nakajima Prize, and Asahi Prize for Contemporary Music. He is currently teaching at Toho Gakuen College of Music and Drama and Nihon University College of Arts.