Duo Pianistico: DIRIANI & AMELOTTI - Rossini, Liviabella, Busoni (High Resolution Audio)

G. ROSSINI (1792 - 1868)

Marcia (pas-redoublé) (*)

Petite fanfare (*)

L. LIVIABELLA (1902 - 1964)

Suite giocattolo (**)

La gocciolina

Il tamburino

Valzer

Cucù

Le campane (omaggio a Mussorgsky)

Capriccetto finale

Riderella (*)

Il ruscello 

La fuga nel mare

La città azzurra

Il pianto di Riderella

La pietà del sole 

Il ruscello

Voce recitante: Carla Corsi

F. BUSONI (1866 - 1924)

Melodie Popolari Finlandesi op. 27 (**)

Andante molto espressivo

Andantino

(*) Prima parte Paolo Dirani

(**) Prima parte Ferruccio Amelotti

Durata totale: 46’38”

Recorded at Teatro Comunale di Budrio 

Recording date Budrio July 1992 

General producer Giulio Cesare Ricci 

Recording supervisor and sound engineer Giulio Cesare Ricci 

Music consultant Annamaria Di Fabio 

English translation Cecilia Sandroni 

Tube microphone Neumann U-47 

Digital tape recorder Teac R-1 

The name of GIOACHINO ROSSINI (Pesaro 1792 - Passy de Paris 1868) has remained linked to the production of operatic music for which he wrote striking pieces. His brilliant theatrical career stretches from the fresh inventiveness of the very first compositions to the unbridled vitality of Barbiere di Siviglia to the quiet thoughtfulness of Guglielmo Tell in 1829. From this moment the so-called "silence" of the composer begins. During the next forty years because of his faltering health, he avoided contact with the theatre. His silence was only apparent because he spent his last years busily composing chamber music, he himself collected un-der the name of Peches de vieillesse and elaborating the Petite Messe Solennelle which includes many original ideas. In the twentieth century arevaluation of Rossini has taken place and continues by means of the diffusion of the chamber works to which the following two pieces belong. 

LA MARCIA (Pas redouble), written for the turkish sultan Abdul Medjid (thanks to it Rossini was awarded the order of Nicham-Iftihar), is instrumental music of the florentine period (1851 - 1855). The piece, composed in 1852, possibly for orchestra, was published by Ricordi in 1853-54 in two versions, one for piano and the other for piano duet (four hands). The regular movement of the march is presented with a marked 2/4 rhythm. From the basic C major tonality, which is articulated in tones of light frivolity or a suggestion of irony, we come to the central episode in F major which is followed by the recapitulation and coda in the main key. 

LA PETITE FANFARE belongs to the Peches de vieillesse, a large number of chamber music, chiefly vocal and pianistic, originally not in-tended to either be published or performed in public but at the "soirées" which enlivened Rossini's house in the Chaussee d'Antin during the last period in Paris (from 1855 on). One finds the key for an understanding of the compositions for piano (Les Peches) in use of irony and mockery. The same titles often show ambiguity or contradict what the pieces have affirmed. It is a psychological strategy of Rossini to protect himself. The composer takes up a detached attitude to avoid a traumatic and painful contact with the external world. The piece consists of a single movement "Allegretto" in E flat major. The theme, with repeated chords, brings to mind hunting and military music (horns and woodwind). The central "excursus" is limited to closely related keys, the relative minor and the subdominant.

LINO LIVIABELLA (Macerata 1902 - Bologna 1964) graduated as a master of piano, organ and composition (under Respighi) from the Conservator), of Santa Cecilia in Roma. He was awarded many prizes for his compositions in Italy and abroad besides, pursuing an intense teaching career which saw him, toward its end, director of Conservatories of Pesaro, Parma and Bologna. The style of Liviabella has absorbed the in-fluence of Respighi, resulting in descriptive images which use chromaticism and polytonality. In his music, which comes across with an expressive force such as to establish an immediate contact with the listener, we feel the inner searching and the suffering of our restless age. 

LA SUITE-GIOCATTOLO (1953) is airy poetry, at times radiant, where the intimate vein results in deep primary colours and visual images. The impressionistic charm of "La gocciolina" is followed by the childish impetuosity of "Tamburino", the quiet almost dreamlike serenity of "Valzer", the sound of the "Cuckoo" which brings us back to reality until it is resolutely reaffirmed by "Le campane" (clearly a tribute to Mussorgsky), to conclude with a strong and saucy finale "Capriccetto". In a moment of subtle melancholy, the composer wrote: "Suvini-Zerboni has published a short suite-giocattolo for me, dedicated to very little children. In one hundred years' time someone will bring it to light and, finding it very witty, he will boast of having discovered it... Perhaps one day I'll wake up again...". 

RIDERELLA was composed for piano duet (four hands) in 1927 and, like many others, bears the dedication "To my Lidia". It is a fable in mu-sic composed during the engagement of the composer to be performed with his future wife. It is a piece suffused with light and melancholy poetry mingled with exuberant sounds and colours. He also made a version for speakers, strings, piano, harp in 1947.

FERRUCCIO BUSONI (Empoli 1866 - Berlin 1924) is the pseudonym of the composer Michelangelo Dante Benvenuto. As a pianist he travelled all over the world until he settled in Berlin for good. He was inspired by the ideal of a "new classicism", a new style which was able to express itself serenely far away from any romantic fervour. Coming from the classical authors, in particular from Bach, he reached a purity of expression which, from a harmonic point of view, shows so much chromaticism as to obscure the poles of tonal attraction. According to Busoni "the octave doesn't consist any longer of seven but rather of twelve notes". In this way the "new classicism" balances the opposite tendency which aims at extending beyond any formal convention. During his life his activity as a composer was kept rather in the shade by his fame as a pianist even though, in recent decades, his standing has come in for a re-assessment and now he is rightly regarded as one of the greatest compo-ser of his age. 

LE MELODIE POPOLARI FINLANDESI op. 27 (1888) for piano duet (four hands), dedicated to Anna Lindelöf. They are among Busoni's early period, when, through Hugo Riemann's intercession, in 1889, the composer became professor of piano in Helsinki. By significantly widening the possibilities of tonalities we can already find the features of Busoni's compositions in his full maturity although we have not yet arrived at a notation without key signature. The score with continual changes of tempo contains indications which require the imitation of orchestra instruments. 

Annamaria Di Fabio 

(Translation Cecilia Sandroni)