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C A L O G E R O D I L I B E R T O |
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Discography
Calogero Di Liberto 1 Mozart - Liszt Reminiscenze dal Don Giovanni 18:33 Total Time 68:32 Optimization and mastering by Aurelio Fragapane for Unda Maris Studio. Undamaris editions thanks pianist Giuseppe Lo Mauro for his support in realizing this CD. For purchase information: info@undamaris.org. Opera has appeared in many forms over its long history. Since 1900, for example, it has found a featured place in cinema - in "silent" film and mainstream film, and as full-length In the 19th century, opera was re-interpreted on the piano and channeled through contemporary understandings of visual virtuosity and the performer's taste in selection. Like cinema in our age, the pianistic vehicle provided spectacle for Romantic audiences and in this way captured the drama and excitement of the source operas. It also made the pianist-composer of the fantasy a stand-in for the composer and performers of the original opera, as a new way of presenting opera came before the public. Calogero Di Liberto's exciting disc of opera fantasies and transcriptions for piano reinterprets the meaning of opera and its presentation yet again. For the early 21st century, Di Liberto composes a fantasy on Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and performs it on a program of opera arrangements by Liszt and Busoni. Di Liberto's decision to write a fantasy on this opera is revealing. Born in Sicily in 1973, Di Liberto notes that Mascagni's Sicilian opera made a great impression on him as a boy and sealed his decision to be involved with opera as a pianist. So his fantasy, composed in 2004, becomes a way of identifying with native culture and connecting with a beloved genre. Di Liberto's piece also offers a fascinating glimpse into the reception of Mascagni's opera more than a century after its premiere (1890). Just as Liszt's operatic piano fantasies tell us a lot about the popularity of past and contemporary operas in Liszt's time, so Di Liberto's Cavalleria fantasy speaks volumes about the current interest in Mascagni's verismo masterpiece. Twentieth-century modernism often rejected such hyper-emotional works. But postmodernism has brought new appreciation to verismo works. It has also taught us that arrangements of earlier works, something the Romantics liked, can be as creative as "original" pieces. Thus Di Liberto's re-creation of Mascagni's opera shines a light on musical tastes of today. The makeup of the program is skillful and satisfying. Just as it closes with a modern take on the late nineteenth century, so it opens with Liszt's 1841 musical interpretation of Mozart's Don Giovanni from the previous century (1787). Busoni's 1920 fantasy on Carmen (1875), which Di Liberto performs before the Cavalleria fantasy, offers another commentary on the past. The other works on the disc are Liszt paraphrases of contemporary operas, each a landmark of the repertoire. The paraphrases of Rigoletto and Tristan und Isolde, from 1859 and 1867, use only one number from the opera and typify Liszt's simplified approach to operatic arrangement after he retired from the concert stage in 1847. The famous Act III Quartet of Verdi's opera becomes the signature number for Liszt, and the Liebestod represents Wagner's sensual music drama of 1865. These paraphrases flank Liszt's magisterial Réminiscences de Norma, from 1841, which resembles the Mozart in its substantial length and its use of several opera numbers. Overall Di Liberto's recording gives us a nice balance of contemporary and past source operas, and simple and complex arrangements. It opens our ears to pianist-composers of three different eras. Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan shows the popularity of Mozart's opera for the Romantics and stresses favored themes at the time. It opens with Giovanni's confrontation with the divine order at the climax of the opera (also in the overture). Like many Romantics Liszt was attracted to the demonic element, as seen also in his Mephisto Waltz and Faust Symphony. Rumbling chords and arpeggios give way to the sweetness of "Là ci darem la mano", the famous duet of seduction. It becomes the basis of an extended sequence of variations and even hints at fugue. The "champagne aria", Giovanni's hedonistic paean to wine, women, and song, is next, and segues into the return of the confrontation music that brings the work to a close. The Rigoletto paraphrase feels like a fairly straightforward account of the Quartet, but has many virtuosic flourishes atop the basic framework. Réminiscences de Norma is a long fantasy that draws on seven pieces from the opera and emphasizes the protagonist's conflict between duty and happiness. The music falls into two large groups - the first from the opening scene, the second from the end. Bellini's lyricism is beautifully conveyed on the piano, yet it is adorned with challenging pianistic devices (Liszt wrote it for pianist Marie Pleyel, who wanted a bravura concert piece). In the second half, after a transitional recitative, some sections are percussive ("Qual cor tradisti" and the chorus "Guerra!"). Liszt the virtuoso composer emerges at the end as he combines melodies of different numbers against each other. After an arresting start with the "Lass mich sterben" (Let me die) Leitmotiv, Liszt's paraphrase of the Liebestod settles into a moving rendition of Wagner's extraordinary resolution to Tristan und Isolde. Liszt wisely withholds pyrotechnics from the work. The performer's challenge is to practice restraint yet sustain a buildup of tension to the end. Di Liberto does this beautifully, sensitive to Wagner's dramatic mission. The pianist turns next to compatriot Ferruccio Busoni and his Kammerfantasie über Carmen, the second of Busoni's two operatic fantasies for piano. More than any piece on the disc, the Carmen fantasy resembles a medley, with five numbers in quick succession: the festive opening of Act IV, Don José's lyrical "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée", the exotic Habanera, the bright start of the Overture, and the dark Fate Motive from the Overture and elsewhere. Busoni's lifelong immersion in German music and his turn to tradition after World War I show up here in fussy counterpoint, as in the opening and the Habanera. Busoni's fantasy is an early-modernist take on Bizet's popular opera and forgoes the sweep and immediacy of Liszt's Romantic style. Di Liberto's Fantasia sulla Cavalleria Rusticana brings back a Romantic approach for a Romantic opera. The majestic opening chords of this multi-sectioned work announce a reconnection with the grand manner of Liszt and Mascagni both. Although Di Liberto does not stress any character or event, the piece makes the most of the pivotal duet between Turiddu and Santuzza that seals their fate. It appears several times: near the beginning, in the middle (as the climax of the work), and near the end. Di Liberto sees the first appearance as «a flashback, a sort of reminiscence of something that happened in the past»: an apt description of the nostalgic impulse behind the fantasy itself. In any event, Liszt's "three-handed technique", in which a line in octaves in the middle is split successively between two hands, is used in the second and third appearances. Two other numbers from the Mascagni are prominent in Di Liberto's piece. In the first half, Alfio's aria "Il cavallo scalpita" receives extended treatment. The composer underlines this as a bass aria by having the right hand cross over the left to thump out Alfio's vocal line two octaves below original pitch. Virtuosic riffs here and in the choral continuation add pianistic panache to the style. In the second half, a brief transition using part of the Prelude takes us to the next major piece, the brindisi "Viva il vino spumeggiante". While the start is fairly straightforward, the texture becomes technically demanding as fingery chromaticism in the melody is combined with decorative arpeggios across the keyboard. After the third iteration of the duet, the martellato coda based on the brindisi brings the work to a brilliant close. One might wonder why Di Liberto omitted Cavalleria's evocative "Intermezzo", a piece incorporated into some major films (Coppola's The Godfather Part III and Scorsese's Raging Bull). The pianist-composer feels it is too "perfect" to be reworked, just as Liszt avoided "Casta diva" in his Norma fantasy. All the same, Di Liberto achieves what Liszt could not because the Romantic virtuoso died before Cavalleria was composed: a delicious pianistic commentary on Mascagni's special opera.
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