Variazioni

Luigi Dallapiccola - Due Pezzi - Variazioni - Dialoghi - Three Questions With Two Answers (Stradivarius)
EAC 099pb4 Rip | APE+CUE, LOGs | 1 CD | 60:27 min | 305 MB | 300 dpi PDF Complete Scans
Genre: Classical - 20th Century | Label: Stradivarius

Exploring Dallapiccola’s orchestral works in excellent company

The new disc includes the first modern recording of Dialoghi (1960) – the most hermetic of all Dallapiccola’s works in its inwardness and glacial, though never inexpressive, harmonies, played with keen eloquence by Jean-Guihen Queyras. A satellite to the in-progress Ulisse, Three Questions with Two Answers (1963) fairly encapsulates the opera’s metaphysical concerns in its motivic richness and sense of grand vistas – whether of nature or humanity – aspiring towards the infinite.

Rophé obtains responsive playing from Turin’s RAI orchestra, with sound that brings out detail and atmosphere in equal measure. If the Chandos CD is an ideal introduction to Dallapiccola’s music, the Stradivarius disc is a necessary follow-up and can be strongly recommended.

Richard Whitehouse - Gramophone 11/2005 -

While Luigi Dallapiccola is most remembered for his serial compositions, listeners may be surprised to find that much of his output is quite approachable and highly enjoyable. Dallapiccola occasionally wrote openly tonal works in a neo-Classical vein, and several of his milder twelve-tone pieces lean toward tonality in their triad-based rows and beautifully crafted themes. This 2004 release presents some of Dallapiccola's most accessible music, warmly performed by Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic, and richly recorded by Chandos.

The revival of tonality has brought out of the woodwork a great many tonal orchestral works from the middle of the twentieth century. Britain had no shortage of these, and their composers each have their partisans. One of Richard Arnell's is conductor Martin Yates, who has committed a number of them to disc with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, which, it must be said, delivers fine, assertive performances…….

James Manheim @ AllMusic