Album Reviews: Casella and Respighi

Alfredo Casella. Symphony No. 3. Photo / Supplied

Casella: Symphony No 3 (Naxos)
Stars: 5/5

Respighi: Violin Concerto in A major (Naxos)
Stars: 3/5

Verdict: "The globally aware Naxos Records introduce us to a world of Italian music outside of the opera house."

Pity any 19th-century Italian composer with ambitions to write for the concert hall. The non-operatic works of Donizetti, Bellini, Puccini and Verdi, with the exception of Verdi's (very operatic) Requiem, were doomed to be marginalia; a dedicated symphonist like Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) shamefully sidelined.

Things improved in the 20th century and Naxos has unearthed a real treasure with Alfredo Casella's Third Symphony.

This substantial score, dating from 1939-40, completes the Casella symphonic cycle undertaken by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma under Francesco La Vecchia.

If the composer's previous symphony in 1909 was in awe of the mighty Mahler, the Third is more in tune with the mainstream contemporary styles of the day.

There is a real symphonic argument pursued over its four movements and, from La Vecchia's forceful baton work, one imagines him as a man who enjoys a lively discussion over chianti.

Individual touches include an Andante molto moderato that, despite some cool woodwind colourings, is Italianate in its lyricism, and a Scherzo as sardonic as Shostakovich at his most barbed.

The disc is completed with Casella's 1916 Elegia eroica, written in memory of a soldier killed in World War I. This is a shattering score, balancing tender lament with a fury not afraid of shrillness to make its point.

Ottorini Respighi (1879-1936) has become a concert regular through his various pieces of picture-postcard music, including the Feste Romane - brilliant and meretricious but good clean fun, according to American critic and composer Virgil Thomson.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of Salvatore Di Vittorio and his Chamber Orchestra of New York "Otterino Respighi", we now have an early Violin Concerto, completed by the conductor, and a selection of other orchestral works including a charming Rossiniana suite.

Alas the concerto, for all its romantic yearning, is not particularly memorable and soloist Laura Marcadori comes across as efficient rather than inspired. Here and elsewhere the roughness of the orchestral strings shows through, especially in a cod-Baroque Suite for Strings which, even with the best playing in the world, is fjords away from Grieg's sparkling Holberg Suite.