PETRASSI PROSSEDA (High Resolution Audio)

Partita (1926)

I. Preludio                                                                 2.27

II. Aria: Calmo con dolcezza                                    2.58                

III. Gavotta (grottesco) Moderato                           1.35    

IV. Giga: Vivace                                                         1.42

Siciliana e Marcia (1930)

Per pianoforte a 4 mani* 

Siciliana: Andantino                                                 1.51

Marcia: Allegro                                                         1.20    

Toccata (1933)

Adagio – Presto – Adagio                                         7.28

Piccola invenzione (1941)

Andantino                                                                 0.58

Invenzioni (1944)

I. Presto Volante                                                       1.18

II. Moderato – Più presto                                         3.02    

III. Presto, leggero                                                    1.35

IV. Moderatamente mosso, scorrevole                  3.16

V. Andantino, non molto mosso e sereno             4.11

VI. Tranquillo                                                            2.49

VII. Scorrevole                                                          3.20

VIII. Allegretto e grazioso                                         2.25

Petite pièce (1950)

Allegretto e grazioso con spirito [e comodità]      1.51    

Oh les beaux jours! (1976)

I. Bagatelle: Andantino, un poco mosso                3.33

II. Le petit chat (Mirò): Allegro [non presto]           3.32

Conversazione con Goffredo Petrassi                    15.37

A cura di Raffaele Pozzi 

*& Alessandra Ammara, piano

Durata totale: 1.07.44

GOFFREDO PETRASSI

Complete Piano Works

CD fonè 2049

Conceived, recorded and produced by

Giulio Cesare Ricci, Raffaele Pozzi

Recording assistant Paola Maria Ricci

Recorded at Palazzo Municipale di Ninfa, Giardini di Ninfa (Latina)

Recording date June 7th - 11th 2000

Instrument Piano Steinway D n. 520955

Piano technician Mauro Buccitti

Equipment

valve microphones: Neumann U47, U48  mikepre-amplifiers: Signoricci analog tape recorders: Studer C37 (1950), Nagra 4S digital tape recorders: Nakamichi 1000 mod. Signoricci microphone, digital cables: Signoricci

Live recording withoutfurther editing

Cover photo: Goffredo Petrassi, Venezia 1940 

Si ringrazia la Fondazione "Roffredo Caetani" per la collaborazione prestata e il Dott. Lauro Marchetti per la cortese disponibilità. 

PETRASSI "EN BLANC ET NOIR". 

Notes on the compositions for piano

GoffredoPetrassi's interest in the piano goes back to his first approaches to music. He himself remembers the curiosity aroused by an old Viennese instrument dated 1826 - a contemporary therefore of Beethoven -which was in the house of an uncle at Zagarolo, the small town in the Roman countryside where the composer was born on 16 July 1904. After moving to Rome at the age of seven, Petrassi entered the Schola Cantorum of San Salvatore in Lauro. It is known that the experience of boy chorister, which followed the old tradition for training musicians for the papal chapels, represented a spiritual and musical deposit of the maximum importance for the future composer. The developments of these preliminaries were however still distant. His activity as chorister ended with the change of voice and Petrassi, coming from a family of modest economic means, started to work at the age of fifteen as assistant in a music shop. The shop was subsequently taken over by the HP-FabbricaItalianaPianoforti (Italian Piano Manufactury) of Turin whose managing director was Guido MaggiorinoGatti, a leading organizer and music critic in Italy at that time; the shop then moved to Corso Umberto, not far from the Conservatoire of Santa Cecilia. There the youngster had the opportunity, in his free time, to read scores and parts playing, self-taught, a piano of the firm. These efforts, applied in particular to the Deux Arabesques of Claude Debussy, attracted the attention of Alessandro Bustini - at that time professor of piano at the Conservatoire-who offered to give him lessons on Sundays gratis. Under the guidance of Bustini, Petrassi began to study piano fairly regularly, applying himself to the traditional literature of the instrument, from Bach's Well-tempered Klavier to Chopin and Debussy. On the advice of Bustini, he started to study harmony with Vincenzo Di Donato in 1925, displaying a great talent for composition. His efforts were then directed towards entering the Conservatoire in the class of composition and, once an acceptable technical competence was reached, the piano was temporarily abandoned. The first compositions in the catalogue of Petrassi's works date back to the "apprenticeship" period with Di Donato: Egloga and Partita, both for piano, were composed in 1926 and played by the pianist Letizia Franco at the Sala Sgambati in Rome on 28 November of the same year during a public test of Vincenzo Di Donato's pupils. Egloga was never published and is today considered lost. Petrassi remembers adopting a musical scoring without bar-divisions, an ingenuous juvenile experiment influenced (according to him) by the reading of a piano piece by Federico Mompou, a twentieth-century stylistically Gallicized Catalan composer. The title of the composition, with its evocation of the classical-pastoral world, is proof of the literary interests of the young Petrassi and of his regard for the French cultural and musical tradition that was still alive in the Roman milieu, between the opposing forces of the followers of Ottorino Respighi, IldebrandoPizzetti and Alfredo Casella. Nor can a vague, perhaps unconscious, reference be excluded to the celebrated eclogue of Mallarme, L'Apres-midi d'un faun which inspired Debussy. The Partita for piano, also of 1926 and listed among the early compositions in the Petrassi catalogue, already reveals the exceptional talent of the pupil. The stylistic borrowings are happily amalgamated in this piece and, if the typical limits of maturity of a juvenile work are excluded, the composition appears as a whole pleasant and well proportioned. The title Partita denotes in addition Petrassi's adhesion, already in 1926, to the neo-baroque aesthetics which was one of the forms of «return to the past» so widespread in arts and music in Italy between the two World Wars. The neoclassical ideology of Alfredo Casella can in fact be glimpsed behind the formal choice of the Partita for piano, which • preceded the far more personal Partita for orchestra of 1932. In the case of Casella this ideology materialized in contemporary compositions like his Partita of 1925, Scarlattiana and Serenata of 1926-27 and influenced, as is well known, a great deal of the music produced in Italy between the Twenties and the Thirties. The eclectism of the young student was revealed right from the first movement of the piece, the Preludio. The toccata form figurations, the powerful cadential groups almost organistic and neo-baroque give way to a lyrical section in the manner of Chopin. In the same way, the melody of the second movement, an Aria in low crepuscular undertones, folkish in flavour, is ornamented in the style of Chopin. In order to understand these expressive adaptations the poetic preferences of Petrassi should be remembered: on the one hand, between 1926 and 1927, he set to music two poems by Guido Gozzano (Salvezza and La morte del cardellino) and one by Sergio Corazzini (Per organ di barberia); on the other, he composed Due lirichesutemidella campagna romana and collected and harmonized with Giorgio Nataletti a series of Cantidella campagna romana. The third movement, Gavotta (grottesco) contrasts with the second in that the musical texture is sharper and"more dissonant. Petrassi hints at an approach to modernity through the aesthetics of Casella which in subsequent works will become more obvious. The fourth movement of Partita confirms this, a Scarlatti-like Giga which is an undisguised stylistic citation. In 1928, having passed the entrance exam, Petrassi was admitted to the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in the composition class of Alessandro Bustini. On the occasion of a composition test at the conservatory, for which he had presented his Tre cori for small orchestra (1932), Petrassi met Alfredo Casella who thought highly of his musical talent and introduced him to his musical entourage. The extent to which the student of composition had already been attracted by the style of Casella well before their first official meeting is clearly illustrated in a little piece of 1930 for 4-hand piano duo: Siciliana e Marcia. The resemblance to the opening of Casella's Pupazzetti in Marcia and to his 11 pezziinfantili in Siciliana seems almost like an exercise in stylistic imitation. The next composition, the Toccata (composed in March 1933), testifies the distinctly different existential and creative situation of Petrassi. Having finished his composition studies at the conservatory that year, the composer abandoned the frustrating work of shop Salvatore in Lauro. It is known that the experience of boy chorister, which followed the old tradition for training musicians for the papal chapels, represented a spiritual and musical deposit of the maximum importance for the future composer. The developments of these preliminaries were however still distant. His activity as chorister ended with the change of voice and Petrassi, coming from a family of modest economic means, started to work at the age of fifteen as assistant in a music shop. The shop was subsequently taken over by the FIP-FabbricaItalianaPianoforti (Italian Piano Manufactury) of Turin whose managing director was Guido MaggiorinoGatti, a leading organizer and music critic in Italy at that time; the shop then moved to Corso Umberto, not far from the Conservatoire of Santa Cecilia. There the youngster had the opportunity, in his free time, to read scores and parts playing, self-taught, a piano of the firm. These efforts, applied in particular to the Deux Arabesques of Claude Debussy, attracted the attention of Alessandro Bustini - at that time professor of piano at the Conservatoire who offered to give him lessons on Sundays gratis. Under the guidance of Bustini, Petrassi began to study piano fairly regularly, applying himself to the traditional literature of the instrument, from Bach's Well-tempered Klavier to Chopin and Debussy. On the advice of Bustini, he started to study harmony with Vincenzo Di Donato in 1925, displaying a great talent for composition. His efforts were then directed towards entering the Conservatoire in the class of composition and, once an acceptable technical competence was reached, the piano was temporarily abandoned. The first compositions in the catalogue of Petrassi's works date back to the "apprenticeship" period with Di Donato: Egloga and Partita, both for piano, were composed in 1926 and played by the pianist Letizia Franco at the Sala Sgambati in Rome on 28 November of the same year during a public test of Vincenzo Di Donato's pupils. Egloga was never published and is today considered lost. Petrassi remembers adopting a musical scoring without bar-divisions, an ingenuous juvenile experiment influenced (according to him) by the reading of a piano piece by Federico Mompou, a twentieth-century stylistically Gallicized Catalan composer. The title of the composition, with its evocation of the classical-pastoral world, is proof of the literary interests of the young Petrassi and of his regard for the French cultural and musical tradition that was still alive in the Roman milieu, between the opposing forces of the followers of Ottorino Respighi, IldebrandoPizzetti and Alfredo Casella. Nor can a vague, perhaps unconscious, reference be excluded to the celebrated eclogue of Mallarme, L'Apres-midi d'un faune which inspired Debussy. The Partita for piano, also of 1926 and listed among the early compositions in the Petrassi catalogue, already reveals the exceptional talent of the pupil. The stylistic borrowings are happily amalgamated in this piece and, if the typical limits of maturity of a juvenile work are excluded, the composition appears as a whole pleasant and well proportioned. The title Partita denotes in addition Petrassi's adhesion, already in 1926, to the neo-baroque aesthetics which was one of the forms of «return to the past» so widespread in arts and music in Italy between the two World Wars. The neoclassical ideology of Alfredo Casella can in fact be glimpsed behind the formal choice of the Partita for piano, which • preceded the far more personal Partita for orchestra of 1932. In the case of Casella this ideology materialized in contemporary compositions like his Partita of 1925, Scarlattiana and Serenata of 1926-27 and influenced, as is well known, a great deal of the music produced in Italy between the Twenties and the Thirties. The eclectism of the young student was revealed right from the first movement of the piece, the Preludio. The toccata form figurations, the powerful cadential groups almost organistic and neo-baroque give way to a lyrical section in the manner of Chopin. In the same way, the melody of the second movement, an Aria in low crepuscular undertones, folkish in flavour, is ornamented in the style of Chopin. In order to understand these expressive adaptations the poetic preferences of Petrassi should be remembered: on the one hand, between 1926 and 1927, he set to music two poems by Guido Gozzano (Salvezza and La morte del cardellino) and one by Sergio Corazzini (Per organo di barberia); on the other, he composed Due lirichesutemidella campagna romana and collected and harmonized with Giorgio Nataletti a series of Cantidella campagna romana. The third movement, Gavotta (grottesco) contrasts with the second in that the musical texture is sharper and more dissonant. Petrassi hints at an approach to modernity through the aesthetics of Casella which in subsequent works will become more obvious. The fourth movement of Partita confirms this, a Scarlatti-like Giga which is an undisguised stylistic citation. In 1928, having passed the entrance exam, Petrassi was admitted to the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in the composition class of Alessandro Bustini. On the occasion of a composition test at the conservatory, for which he had presented his Tre cori for small orchestra (1932), Petrassi met Alfredo Casella who thought highly of his musical talent and introduced him to his musical entourage. The extent to which the student of composition had already been attracted by the style of Casella well before their first official meeting is clearly illustrated in a little piece of 1930 for 4-hand piano duo: Siciliana e Marcia. The resemblance to the opening of Casella's Pupazzetti in Marcia and to his 11 pezziinfantili in Siciliana seems almost like an exercise in stylistic imitation. The next composition, the Toccata (composed in March 1933), testifies the distinctly different existential and creative situation of Petrassi. Having finished his composition studies at the conservatory that year, the composer abandoned the frustrating work of shop assistant and revealed himself as a promising composer with the Partita for orchestra: Casella in fact conducted this work at Amsterdam in 1933, launching Petrassi on the European musical scene. The Toccata for piano of 1933 is one of the first solid fruits of an emergent creative identity. The proof of this can be seen in the compositional decisions which combined the neo--baroque aesthetics of Casella with the style of Paul Hindemith. Petrassi united the grave and meditative style of the first of Casella's Due Ricercarisulnome "B-A-C-H" (1932) with the model of the Toccate of Girolamo Frescobaldi (which he had certainly studied in the class of organ) and with the counterpoint of Hindemith. Toccata in fact is based on a strictly monothematic conception which develops the opening theme with notable contrapuntal proficiency. Relying on the harmonic, rhythmic-percussive resources and full and chiaroscuro sounds of the piano, Petrassi in the Thirties added the instrument to his orchestral palette. From Passacaglia in 1931 to Coro di morn in 1941, all the composer's important scores foresaw the presence of the piano. The neo-baroque poetics of Petrassi, which during that period combined the influences of Casella with those of Hindemith and the Stravinsky of Oedipus Rex and the Symphony of Psalms, assigns as significant role to that instrument, consistently with the models quoted. Further proof is provided by the composition of the Concerto for piano and orchestra, written between 1936 and 1939, which had its first performance at the Teatro Adriano of Rome on 10 December 1939 under the direction of Bernardino Molinari and with Walter Gieseking at the piano, a composition which today Petrassi (perhaps with excessive severity) considers a failure. Cow di morti in 1941 - a composition in which the tone colour assigned to three pianos plays a fundamentally "dramatic" role - marked the beginning of a process of transformation of Petrassi's style which saw the abandonment of the neo-baroque tones and modes of the Thirties for a greater dryness of the musical texture. In the Coro, in fact, the personal and political apprehensions and doubts emerge which assailed Petrassi as the result of the precipitating war events. A significant premonition of future developments is present, in our opinion, in the instrumentation of the first orchestral work of the Forties, La follia di Orlando (1943). In fact, it will be noted that for the first time the harpsichord replaces the piano in the score, with the clear purpose of a timbric and semantic lightening of the structure. The harmonic blocks, the neo-baroque dynamism, not devoid of a certain grandeur somewhat out of tune with the new historical climate, give way - in general - to a lighter style of writing. Two short compositions of the early Forties conform to this new tendency: Piccolainvenzione for piano and Aguidoemmegatti, written for a special occasion. The first, Piccolainvenzione, dated April 1941, whose composition - as well as the title - recalls one of the gods of the so-called neoclassical period: Johann Sebastian Bach. Here, however, the evocation does not express itself in turgid baroque forms, but in a slender double counterpoint whose imitative "play" is an unequivocal reappraisal of the model of Bach's two-part Inventions, possibly filtered through a depouillement a la Ravel. Aguidoemmegatti is dated 30 May 1942, the day of the fiftieth birthday of Guido MaggiorinoGatti, to whom the piece is dedicated. Referring ironically to the name of the dedicatee, Petrassi takes the musical material- or, better, the subject of this «Divertimento scarlattiano largo e stretto, a dritto e rovescio» (to quote the subtitle) - from the celebrated Fugue in G minor for harpsichord of Domenico Scarlatti, known as the «Fugue of the Cat», with its whimsical melodic subject suggested to Scarlatti (according to a well-known anecdote) by the wandering of his favourite cat along the keyboard. Aguidoemmegatti, the manuscript of which has never yet been published, was revised together with the previous PiccolaInvenzione and both of them amalgamated, in 1976, in the diptych Oh les beaux jours!. With the eight InvenzioniPetrassi subsequently composed his most challenging work for piano, pieces written between 1943 and 1944 and then collected and published in 1946. The writing of considerable virtuosic undertaking present in the 1939 Concerto gives way to more ethereal textures and figurations, to a new lexical and syntactic exploration. The first Invenzione, dedicated to the sixtieth birthday of Alfredo Casella, is indicative of the way in which GoffredoPetrassi combines continuity with modernization. The neo-baroque reference to Bach is here subtly masked and as though dissolved, rendered light by the extreme rapidity of the piece marked by Petrassi with the recommendation «Presto volante». 

Raffaele Pozzi

Translation: Anne Ricotti