Giuseppe Martucci - Piano Concerto No. 2 (1885) Painting Info - The artist is SHUXING LI I. Allegro Giusto - 00:00 II. Larghetto - 21:07 III. Allegro Con Spirito - 31:17 Giuseppe Martucci was born in Capua on 6 January 1856 and had initial piano lessons from his father. He gave recitals with his sister before he was nine and was a full-time student at the Real Collegio in Naples from 1868, studying the piano with Beniamino Cesi and composition with Paolo Serrao, whose advocacy of the Austro-German repertoire, unusual in Italy for that time, had a decisive influence on Martucci. Returning to the concert platform in 1874, he gave his first Milan recital the next year and subsequently toured to London and Dublin. 1878 saw him in Paris, where his abilities as pianist and composer were warmly applauded, but more significant had been his appointment the previous year as principal conductor of the newly formed Orchestra Napoletana, which gave its first public concert in January 1881 and by 1884 was widely considered the best in Italy. In 1886 Martucci was appointed to three major posts in Bologna, notably the directorship of the Liceo Musicale, which enabled him to develop further as an academic and conductor, championing a broad range of nineteenth-century orchestral music and appearing as a guest-conductor in cultural centres throughout Western Europe, while also acting as mentor to many younger Italian composers. In 1902 he returned to Naples to take up the directorship of the Conservatorio (formerly the Real Collegio), in which city he continued his programming of new or unfamiliar orchestral and operatic repertoire, though his health was by now declining and he died in Naples on 1 June 1909. From the start of his career as a pianist Martucci extended the repertoire, with Bach, Rameau and Scarlatti all prominent in his recitals. As a conductor, he helped to make Berlioz, Schumann and Brahms (the Italian première of whose Second Symphony he gave in 1882), familiar to Italian audiences, while his championing of Wagner saw the Italian première of Tristan und Isolde in 1888 and Neapolitan première of Götterdämmerung less than a year before his death. British music was also well represented (he programmed Stanfords Irish Symphony on several occasions), while his interest in French music saw him advocate Franck, dIndy and latterly Debussy. The first movement starts with a terse orchestral gesture, which the soloist takes up in a virtuosic passage leading to the animated first theme being expounded between them. Impetus relaxes for the second theme, initially entrusted to piano and featuring intricate passagework, before reaching a climax where elements of both themes are intensively combined. Momentum spills over into a dramatic orchestral tutti that dies down, allowing the soloist and latterly woodwind to reflect on the second theme in a passage which, joined by strings, accrues a fair emotional ardour. The first theme is presently reintroduced as part of a modified reprise, duly taking in the second theme before a solemn brass passage makes way for an extensive and highly-wrought cadenza that makes resourceful use of all the main thematic material. Although re-entering quietly, the orchestra soon ratchets up tension as the movement heads to its powerfully dramatic close. The slow movement opens with restful music on strings, solo horn accompanying the piano as it sets out the limpid main melody. The central section revolves around a sustained theme for lower strings that builds in intensity to a forceful confrontation between soloist and orchestra, after which the initial melody returns on woodwind decorated by delicate piano arabesques. At length it receives a full restatement that moves into a poetic coda for piano and woodwind. The finale begins with a darting but not entirely serious theme discussed between soloist and orchestra, complemented by an insouciant theme given to strings in which the piano has an initially supporting rôle. Its rapidity carries through to a central section in which aspects of both themes are commented on by woodwind and strings with the piano again largely in support, The pace slackens for the reintroduction of the second theme, but the prevailing animation is not to be banished and, underpinned by scintillating piano work, the movement heads onward to its breathless close.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:42:33 +0000
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