Italian Abstractions

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda obviously has an affinity for the music of fellow countryman Luigi Dallapiccola and has used his tenure with the BBC Philharmonic to record some of his orchestral music. This is an attractive disc which gives a fine overview of Dallapiccola's work. It begins with Dallapiccola at his most approachable in the piece Tartiniana which orchestrates sonatas by Tartini. Such endeavours were a trend among 20th century Italian composers with Casella, Respighi and Berio among others doing similar things in the footsteps of Stravinsky and Pulcinella. The soloist here with the orchestra is violinist James Ehnes. The remaining works on the disc are more typical of Dallapiccola's interest in serialism and more contemporary approaches but they are never too far out on the edge. Due Pezzi is a twelve note score but retains echoes of early music, solo violin duties here and in the remaining works falling to orchestra leader Yuri Torchinsky. Piccola Musica Notturna is a programmatic night music piece, a generally serene and reflective piece with one or two harsh outbursts, cries in the night. The remaining two contrasting works are extracts from his ballet score Marsia, which combines lyrical and even impressionistic elements with harsher grinding rhythms, and the more abstract Variazioni per Orchestra which develops his own experiments and individual take on the 12 tone system. This disc makes a good introduction to a composer who is not at all forbidding despite the modernist garb the music is dressed in.