CASELLA

Divertimento for Fulvia

Donatoni Music for Chamber Orchestra
Ghedini Concerto grosso
Malipiero Imaginary Orient

Orchestra della
Svizzera italiana
Damian Iorio
 Alfredo Casella (1883-1947): Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) • Franco Donatoni (1927-2000)
Divertimento per Fulvia (Divertimento for Fulvia), Op. 64 (1940) 15:21
Giorgio Federico Ghedini (1892-1965) • Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
1 I. Sinfonia (Overture). Allegro vivace e spiritoso, alla marcia 2:05
2 II. Allegretto. Allegretto moderato ed innocente 1:42 ‘A crucial figure: few modern musicians in any country can advised Casella’s parents that to find tuition that would do
3 II. Valzer diatonico (Diatonic Waltz). Vivacissimo 1:43 compare with him for sheer energy, enlightenment and justice to his talent, they would need to send him abroad.
4 VI. Siciliana. Molto dolce e espressivo, come una melodia popolare persistence in his many-sided activities as leader, 1896 was a watershed in Casella’s life: his father died,
(Very sweet and expressive, like a folk melody) 2:25 organiser, conductor, pianist, teacher and propagandist – after a long illness; and he moved to Paris with his mother
one marvels that he had any time left for composing.’ The to study at the Conservatoire. Casella was to remain in
5 V. Giga (Jig). Tempo di giga inglese (English jig time) (Allegro vivo) 1:54
musician thus acclaimed by the English expert on Italian Paris for almost twenty years, cutting his teeth in the most
6 VI. Carillon. Allegramente 1:05 music John C.G. Waterhouse was Alfredo Casella – who dynamic artistic milieu of the time as pianist, composer,
7 VII. Galoppo (Galop). Prestissimo 1:28 is the fulcrum of the present recording celebrating the conductor and – in 1910, when he persuaded two deadly
8 VIIIa. Allegro veloce 1:07 lighter side, in music for small orchestras, of four rival musical societies to join forces to enable the Paris
9 VIIIb. Valzer (Waltz) 0:30 twentieth-century Italian composers with plenty in première of Mahler’s Second Symphony – indefatigable
0 VIIIc. Apoteosi (Apotheosis). Lento, grave 1:22 common: not least, they all come from the nation’s organiser. As a composer, inspired above all (however
northern regions, and were all relatively late developers in much he later denied it) by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring,
Franco Donatoni (1927-2000): finding their own musical voices. Gian Francesco Casella wrote some of the most radical music of the First
Musica (Music) for chamber orchestra (1954-55) 17:29 Malipiero from Venice in the northeast, a year older than World War period. When Italy joined the War in 1915,
Casella, was one of his closest musical associates: it was Casella decided to return permanently to his home
! I. Largo 1:55 at Malipiero’s home in the hill town of Asolo in 1923 that country; settling in Rome, he rapidly galvanised a group of
@ II. Allegro moderato 5:41 Casella composed the music that firmly established his young Italian composers (including Gian Francesco
# III. Adagio 5:09 own mature style. Giorgio Federico Ghedini, a decade Malipiero) into an ‘Italian Modern Music Society’ (Società
$ IV. Allegretto, con vivacità 4:44 younger than them, was – like Casella – a son of italiana di Musica Moderna), promoting performances of
Piedmont, Italy’s northwesternmost region, and built his the newest music by themselves and others – and
Giorgio Federico Ghedini (1892-1965): career in Casella’s native city of Turin. Franco Donatoni provoking enormous controversy among Italian audiences
Concerto grosso in F major from Verona, more than 40 years younger, had barely and critics, for many of whom Wagner was still virtually
for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn and strings (1927) 20:00 begun to study composition when Casella died in 1947, the last word in modernism. Casella never lost his
but his favourite teacher was one of Casella’s former enthusiasm for musical innovation: in the 1920s he
% I. Largo – Allegro con brio 5:29 protégés, the composer Goffredo Petrassi. organised Italian première tours for both Schoenberg’s
^ II. Andante moderato, un poco pesante e gravemente 3:25 Late nineteenth-century Turin had the strongest Pierrot lunaire (‘Moonstruck Pierrot’, 1912) and
& III. Allegro mosso ed energico – 2:10 instrumental music tradition of any city in Italy – including, Stravinsky’s Les noces (‘The Wedding’, 1914-17, 1921-23);
* IV. Adagio 4:34 from 1872 to 1886, the first regular concert series for a and he continued to promote cutting-edge compositions
( V. Allegro spiritoso, ‘alla giga’ 4:22 symphony orchestra in the whole country, the Concerti throughout the 1930s. But with the Undici pezzi infantili
popolari (Popular Concerts). Casella himself was born (‘Eleven Children’s Pieces’, Op. 35) of 1920, Casella’s
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973): into a family of cello and piano players: his grandfather, own music – like Stravinsky’s around the same time –
father and both uncles were all top professional cellists; began to become simpler and less experimental.
Oriente immaginario (Imaginary Orient)
Casella’s mother, a fine pianist, was his main teacher for ‘Neoclassical’ is an epithet often applied to both
– three studies for small orchestra (1920) 10:49 the first dozen years of his life – and young Alfredo was a composers, though neither was entirely happy with it; and
) I. Leggermente mosso 2:43 keyboard prodigy. It is a wry comment on the quality of ‘neo-Baroque’ would often be more appropriate: witness,
¡ II. Alquanto lento 4:56 Italian conservatories of the time that two of Italy’s leading for example, two of Casella’s works for piano (himself)
™ III. Non troppo mosso 3:10 composers, Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) and Antonio and small orchestra, the Partita, Op. 42 (1924-25) [Naxos
Bazzini (1818-97), directors of the conservatories in 8.573005] and the ‘Divertimento on music of Domenico
Bologna and Milan respectively, each (and separately) Scarlatti’ Scarlattiana, Op. 44 (1926) [Naxos 8.572416].
Having developed this mature style, Casella scarcely beautiful last section of a far better-known ballet based on brass and solo timpani of that year – strongly influenced, Schoenbergian sense of humour, calling to mind, in its
deviated from it for two decades; so much so that when in children’s piano pieces, composed by a good friend of like most of his music of the time, by Casella’s great flashes of the grotesque, another Hungarian composer a
1940 he expanded the Eleven Children’s Pieces into a Casella’s from their Paris Conservatoire days: Le Jardin Hungarian contemporary Béla Bartók (1881-1945). But few years older than Donatoni, György Ligeti (1923-
‘ballet for children’, he was able to add completely new féerique (‘The Fairy Garden’) from Ma Mère l’oye (‘Mother ‘Donatok’, as Donatoni was soon nicknamed, was already 2006); or even Haydn in its unflagging unexpectedness.
music with a seamlessness that would surely flummox Goose’, 1911) by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). And there is beginning to feel dissatisfied with his own work; and by Giorgio Federico Ghedini, who was born in Italy’s
anyone trying to spot the joins. a popular, folky strain, too – in the Siciliana, with its sweet, the end of the 1950s, when he at last found a truly westernmost city Cuneo, had the longest wait of any
That ballet, La camera dei disegni (‘The Room of expressive melody, ‘like a folk tune’; in the Jig, with its distinctive voice, his music would undergo immense composer represented here before he finally received the
Drawings’ [not ‘The Drawing Room!’]), is the source of the pungently punchy variations on the Northumbrian folk song changes, as he confronted the challenge of Schoenberg’s high acclaim his music deserved – at the age of 48, with
first work on the present recording, the Divertimento for The Keel Row (a nod to another, older French colleague, twelve-tone techniques, and then the yet more complex the première in Rome of his ‘concerto for orchestra’
Fulvia. Fulvia was Fulvia Casella, Alfredo’s daughter, Claude Debussy (1862-1918), who had used The Keel and avant-garde idioms of his own near contemporaries Architetture (‘Architectures’, 1939-40) [Naxos 8.573006].
born in 1928 and still actively promoting her father’s music Row in his own orchestral Gigues (‘Jigs’, 1909-12), the first and (in some cases) compatriots, Pierre Boulez (1925- He had, in fact, found a distinctive voice at least a dozen
today – and the legacy continues: Fulvia’s daughter of his three orchestral Images of 1905-12); and in the 2016), Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), Luciano years earlier, with works such as the radiant Litanie alla
Fiamma Nicolodi is a distinguished musicologist. When frequent affinities with the lighter music of a much younger Berio (1925-2003) and Luigi Nono (1924-91) – a Venetian Vergine (‘Litanies to the Virgin Mary’, 1926) [Naxos
Casella conducted the ballet’s première in November Russian composer whose soundworld Casella’s often whose teachers had included Gian Francesco Malipiero. 8.111325] and the imaginative orchestral Partita (1926) –
1940 at Rome’s most forward-thinking theatre – the resembles, Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-75). The catalyst for Donatoni’s development was meeting which still awaits its first commercially available recording.
Teatro delle Arti (Arts Theatre), founded in 1925 by the The still younger Franco Donatoni may never have another Venetian former student of Malipiero: the inspiring By this time he was already playing a pivotal rôle as
groundbreaking playwright Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) met Casella, but as a student in Rome in the early 1950s composer and conductor Bruno Maderna (1920-73), a teacher, composer, conductor and pianist in the artistic
among others – twelve-year-old Fulvia was one of the he had no problem supplementing his grant with a few lire huge enthusiast for the innovations of Gustav Mahler life of what has always remained one of Italy’s most
dancers in the corps de ballet. The complete ballet uses earned by composing cod Casella: the film composer (1860-1911), Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and Anton musical cities, Casella’s birthplace Turin; but wider
music from all but one of the Eleven Children’s Pieces; Giovanni Fusco (1906-68), who wrote most of the Webern (1883-1945). Maderna persuaded Donatoni both success proved elusive. After graduating from the
but the suite that Casella extracted from it and called soundtracks for the films of the great Italian director to immerse himself in serialism at the Darmstadt Summer Bologna Conservatory just before the First World War,
Divertimento per Fulvia leaves out three more. It is almost Michelangelo Antonioni, farmed out some of his less School for New Music in 1954, and to compose a piece Ghedini had initially made ends meet through itinerant
a pity to reveal that the opening and closing sections of prestigious commissions to Donatoni – ‘Write me ten for chamber orchestra: he called it simply Musica (‘Music’, opera conducting: he gradually became sick of it, but
the Divertimento – the Sinfonia (Overture), and most of minutes of stuff in the style of Casella for a short! 1954-55), and it is the first of the three world première found an inspiring ‘refuge in Beethoven and J.S. Bach:
the concluding Allegro veloce, Valzer (Waltz) and Something for a cloak-and-dagger film, ten minutes of old recordings here. ‘I spent months analysing Schoenberg’s I always carried their scores with me, and they “sowed the
Apoteosi (Apotheosis) – were newly written in 1940, dances like Respighi!’ – before delivering them under his Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (1926, 1928),’ Donatoni good seed” in me.’ In later life he would pay explicit
whereas everything in between is simply a vividly own name. When Donatoni graduated in 1953, Fusco recalled in the 1980s, ‘armed with four different coloured homage to both composers, not only musically – via an
colourful orchestration of music from 1920. The plot of the tried to tempt him to carry on this secret ghostwriting pencils. Endless numbers – but it was an invaluable orchestral realisation of Bach’s Musical Offering (1946)
ballet – in which a thief steals from a child’s picture book a existence: ‘in a couple of years you’ll get a car, an experience through which I came to understand how the [Naxos 8.111325] – but also in words, writing the
series of drawings that come to life and finally turn on their apartment in five’. But Donatoni had other ideas. Since twelve-tone technique worked. Immediately after that I introduction to the Beethoven entry published in 1963 in
tormentor – is little more than an excuse for a diverse leaving the Bologna Conservatory he had nominally been wrote Musica, my worst piece, sort of Schoenberg gone a the Italian Enciclopedia della musica (Encyclopedia of
succession of dances; the Divertimento offers the studying under Casella’s onetime friend, the by now bit neoclassical.’ Composers are by no means always the Music). And implicit homages to Bach and Beethoven
kaleidoscopic music for enjoyment on its own terms; and rather conservative composer Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880- best judges of their own music, and Donatoni is certainly abound in Ghedini’s works throughout his career: not
as might be expected in a work for children, it is great fun. 1968), on the advanced composition course at Rome’s being far too hard on Musica. For one thing, it almost least the one that receives its première recording here,
Rarely can the interplay between music with and without Santa Cecilia Academy; in reality, though, he was never sounds like Schoenberg (or indeed Bartók) – the Concerto grosso for solo wind quintet and strings – an
sharps and flats have been as keen and spicy as here, learning rather more from unofficial lessons with the though sometimes like Schoenberg’s pupil Webern, and instrumental lineup so fruitful that it is amazing how few
with Casella’s small orchestra joyously amplifying the younger, much more open-minded Goffredo Petrassi with occasional neo-Baroque echoes of Stravinsky, or composers have used it. From the very opening of
juxtapositions in the original piano pieces of white notes in (1904-2003), whose composing career Casella had even Casella. And most importantly, Musica must be one Ghedini’s Concerto grosso – as much neo-Beethoven
one hand and black notes in the other (as in the Allegretto played a major rôle in establishing in the 1930s by his of the most appealing twelve-tone pieces ever composed: slow introduction as neo-Baroque Largo – compositional
and Carillon); or well-nigh snubbing the sharps and flats championship of Petrassi’s early works. Petrassi was on its four movements teem with a rhythmic vitality and influences and affinities are easy to spot; but it is
altogether, as in the Diatonic Waltz and the final the jury of a Radio Luxembourg competition in 1952 which timbral imagination equal to any in the music on the testament to his originality that many of the affinities are
Apotheosis – itself (surely consciously) stolen from the awarded Donatoni first prize for his Concertino for strings, present recording – not to mention a highly un- with works that were yet to be written. The sprung,
syncopated rhythms and chordal clarity occasionally written up till then, albeit with wildly fluctuating degrees of and forty years later in a letter to John C.G. Waterhouse movements: it is introduced early in the first movement by
evoke later music by the younger American Aaron severity. In 1952 he went so far as to say that ‘I wish I had he dismissed it with the single word ‘horrible’. But unison flute and oboe, underpinned by the bassoon; a
Copland (1900-90) – or even, when combined in the not emerged from silence before 1911, with the first set of Malipiero, too, was being overly harsh. Admittedly Oriente variant appears in the middle of the second, now played
almost proto-minimalist repetitions that would become Impressioni dal vero (‘Impressions from Life’, 1910-11); immaginario is awash with the typical chromaticism – by the bassoon itself; and it is relaunched by the flute and
central to Ghedini’s mature style, a much younger and that I had followed them, even if not until six years including prominent augmented seconds – that are the oboe in still another version that pervades the whole of the
American, Michael Torke (b. 1961). And the Concerto later, only with the Pause del silenzio (‘Interruptions of the stock in trade of ‘orientalism’ in nineteenth- and twentieth- third piece, whose near-monothematicism is cleverly
grosso’s ‘quick and witty’ (Allegro spiritoso) concluding Silence’, No. 1, 1917)’ [both works available on Naxos century western music that evokes a (putative) exotic disguised by frequent variations of pace and texture. And
gigue is reminiscent of the late style that Richard Strauss 8.572409]. In 1942, on the other hand, in a programme east; but at least Malipiero, unlike most, confesses to its texture is key: just like Casella, Donatoni and Ghedini in
(1864-1949) would develop more than a decade later – a note about the 1917 Pause del silenzio, he had observed purely imaginary nature. And the music is considerably the other music recorded here, Malipiero revels in the
kinship cemented by a phrase that sounds like a – with great self-awareness – that ‘The First World War more subtle than Malipiero appears to have given it credit remarkable range of sounds that can be drawn from a
premonition of the finale of Strauss’s Second Horn disrupted my whole life, which until 1920 was a perennial for – as the subtitle to the score he regretted publishing small but perfectly formed orchestra.
Concerto (1942). In his five highly contrasting movements tragedy. The works of these years perhaps reflect my suggests: ‘three studies for small orchestra’. Highly
Ghedini explores every possible textural and thematic agitation; however, I consider that if I have created unusually for Malipiero, the whole work revolves around a David Gallagher
relationship between the five wind soloists and the body of something new in my art (formally and stylistically) it single theme, heard in a different form in each of the three
strings, creating a true modern counterpart to the interplay happened precisely in that period.’ In 1917 Malipiero and
between ‘concertino’ solo group and ‘ripieno’ ensemble in his wife, living in the north Italian hill town of Asolo, were
the Baroque concerto grosso form, deployed with such caught up in the most devastating event of the War in
imagination by the likes of Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel and Italy, when 700,000 soldiers and countless civilians fled Orchestra della Svizzera italiana (OSI)
Bach; but Ghedini’s personal, poignant harmonic sideslips, for their lives in the so-called Retreat of Caporetto. Ending
piquant dissonances and diverting rhythmic dislocations up in Rome, Malipiero threw himself into the artistic life of Markus Poschner Principal conductor from September 2015
could only have been composed in the past century. the capital – and not only its purely musical activities, Vladimir Ashkenazy Principal guest conductor from September 2013
Gian Francesco Malipiero, a decade older than newly energised thanks to Casella’s efforts, but also its Alain Lombard Honorary conductor from 2005
Ghedini, was one of the up-and-coming Italian composers theatrical world. With his ‘symphonic drama’ Pantèa
who eagerly joined Casella in the campaigning work of (1917-19) – actually a dance work – and ‘dramatic Founded in Lugano in 1935, the OSI has
the Italian Modern Music Society during the First World expressions’ Sette canzoni (‘Seven Songs’, 1918-19) – a been directed by great musical figures
War. Malipiero had a difficult childhood in Venice as son kind of opera – Malipiero developed his own radical form such as Ansermet, Stravinsky, Stokowski,
of an ancient aristocratic family that had seen much better of music theatre. He also became friendly with some of Celibidache and Scherchen, and has
days – centuries earlier, two of his father’s ancestors had the most experimental playwrights of the time, and wrote worked with composers such as
even become Doge, the head of government in the music for Futurist stage productions – including a piece Mascagni, Richard Strauss, Honegger,
Venetian Republic. By Gian Francesco’s time, the for the ‘plastic dances’ for puppets created by Fortunato Milhaud, Martin and Hindemith, and more
remaining money was on his mother’s side of the family; Depero (1892-1960), which was published as Grottesco recently with Berio, Henze and
and young Malipiero suffered profoundly when his parents (‘Grotesque’, 1918) [Naxos 8.572766] – and the work Penderecki. Richard Strauss’s Duet-
separated in 1893: though he would almost never talk recorded for the first time here, Oriente immaginario. This Concertino for clarinet, bassoon, strings
about it in adult life, it appears that, with his conductor- Imaginary Orient was composed in 1920 for the ‘Teatro and harp (1947) was written for the
pianist father, he spent six years travelling between del colore’ (Theatre of Colour) productions of Achille orchestra. The OSI is one of fourteen
Trieste, Berlin and Vienna earning a living in salon Ricciardi (1884-1923), whose pioneering effects of professional orchestras currently active
orchestras. Malipiero eventually managed to study for a lighting and colour aimed to express the evolving in Switzerland. Consisting of forty-one
year at the Vienna Conservatory, and later at the Bologna psychological nuances of the drama. Yet Malipiero was permanent musicians, it is funded
Conservatory, graduating in 1904 with a performance of soon being almost as rude about his own music as principally by the Canton of Ticino,
his Dai sepocri (‘From Tombs’, 1904) [Naxos 8.572766]. Donatoni would be about his: already in 1921 Malipiero Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI), the City
But he, too, faced a long road to maturity: from 1918 told his friend Guido M. Gatti that he ‘loathed’ Oriente of Lugano and the Associazione Amici
onwards he condemned almost all of the music he had immaginario and wished he had never had it published, dell’OSI. Its tours and international
projects are additionally supported by its International Partner, the Helsinn Group. OSI is the mainstay of the annual
RSI concert seasons, and regularly participates in the Settimane Musicali in Ascona and in LuganoMusica. Through the
Martha Argerich Project it has also had the privilege of working closely with the great Argentinian pianist for over fifteen
years. From September 2015 OSI has been the Resident Orchestra at LAC – Lugano Arte e Cultura. The OSI works
with the great names of orchestral conducting and with internationally acclaimed soloists, performing at major venues
both in Switzerland and abroad. It has made numerous studio recordings for radio transmission and many CDs for
major record labels. osi.swiss osi-brahms.ch

Damian Iorio
The London-born, Italy-based conductor Damian Iorio was raised in a
distinguished family of Italian and English musicians. After studies in
the UK and USA he started his musical career as a violinist and,
while a member of the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra,
studied conducting in St Petersburg. He has worked with an
impressive list of orchestras and opera companies including the
London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Symphony
Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Detroit
Symphony, the Orchestre National de Belgique, the St Petersburg
Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Glyndebourne Festival
Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Helikon Opera, Moscow, Norwegian
Opera, Norrlands Opera, Sweden and many Italian opera houses.
His recording of Casella’s Triple Concerto, Op. 56 and Ghedini’s
Concerto dell’albatro [Naxos 8.573180] was highly acclaimed by The
Guardian (“fine live performances scrupulously conducted by Damian
Iorio”) and was awarded the prestigious “Choc” by Le Monde de la
Musique. His interest in the creation of new music has led him to
conduct several premières, collaborating closely with composers
such as Tan Dun, Huw Watkins, Silvia Colasanti and Michael
Nyman. In Moscow he conducted the Russian première of
Nyman’s  The Man Who Mistook His  Wife For A Hat. He enjoys
working with young musicians and is currently Music Director of the
National Youth String Orchestra of Great Britain. In 2014 he became
Music Director of the Milton Keynes City Orchestra which is building
Photo: Annalise Photography
a strong reputation as a core part of the cultural life in the region
and city. www.damianiorio.com

Naxos gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Ken and Mary Bromley
and other, anonymous benefactors.

In memory of Ken Bromley (1922-2016)

This programme of four colourful, contrasting but complementary works for small orchestra
celebrates the lighter side of four twentieth-century Italian composers, centring on Alfredo
Casella’s Divertimento for Fulvia, composed for his young daughter. Casella’s friend Gian
Francesco Malipiero wrote Oriente immaginario (Imaginary Orient) for a Futurist play by Achille
Ricciardi (1884-1923). Franco Donatoni once called his simply-titled Musica (Music) ‘kind of
Schoenberg gone a bit neoclassical’ – but also with a great sense of humour – while Giorgio
Federico Ghedini’s Concerto grosso is a twentieth-century tribute to both Bach and Beethoven.

Alfredo
CASELLA (1883-1947)
1-0 Divertimento per Fulvia, Op. 64 (1940) 15:21
Franco
DONATONI (1927-2000)
!-$ Musica for chamber orchestra (1954-55)* 17:29
Giorgio Federico
GHEDINI(1892-1965)
%-( Concerto grosso for wind quintet and strings (1927)* 20:00
Gian Francesco
MALIPIERO (1882-1973)
)-™ Oriente immaginario (1920)* 10:49
*WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
Orchestra della Svizzera italiana • Damian Iorio
A detailed track list can be found on page 2 of the booklet • Recorded at the Auditorio
Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano-Besso, Switzerland, from 21st to 24th May, 2013
Producer: RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera • Executive producer: Alissa Nembrini Pedotti
Session producer, engineer and editor: Jochen Gottschall • Booklet notes: David Gallagher
Publishers: Universal Edition A.G., Wien (tracks 1-10); Schott Music Ltd., London 
(tracks 11-14); Edizioni Suvini Zerboni (tracks 15-19); Chester Music Ltd. (tracks 20-22)
Release editor: Peter Bromley • Cover painting: moypapaboris (Fotolia.com)