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Aldo
Finzi was born in Milan on the 4th of February 1897 into an old
Jewish family that originally came from Mantua. The family had a traditional
love for music and Finzi’s aunt was a celebrated soprano by the name of
Giuseppina Finzi Magrini. After
completing his classical studies at the Liceo Parini in Milan, he took a
degree in law at the university in Pavia and simultaneously took his diploma
in compositions as a private student at the Conservatoire of Santa Cecilia
in Rome. Finzi soon gained success and celebrity among the young Italian
composers. Among his works are lyrics, music “da camera,” symphonic
music and the dramatic work ,
Shylock
(unfinished), which was
inspired
by the anti-Jewish persecutions.
In 1937 the Scala Theatre announced a competition for a new opera to be performed during the following season. Aldo Finzi decided to enter the competition with his work “La Serenata al Vento”. Pick-Mangiagalli, an older colleague to Finzi, was among the jury chosen to judge the compositions entered. Ahead of the official announcement of the winner, Finzi was contacted by his colleague who privately informed him that he had won the competition. However, the official letter from the Jury, expected in the spring of 1938, never arrived. This was naturally of great disappointment to Aldo Finzi. A few months later anti-Jewish sentiment, followed by anti-Jewish laws introduced by the fascist government at the time, began to surface and Finzi realized that the judgement of the examining board, which was made in his favour, had been annulled by the intervention of the government. The official reason given was that none of the works entered were considered worthy of being performed. During
the Nazi occupation that followed, Finzi went into hiding, working
anonymously or under an assumed name. For example, Finzi’s rhythmic
translation to Italian of Béatitudes
by
Franck, is published under another name. In 1944 he wrote, under his own
name, Preludio e fuga per Organo
(Prelude
and fugue for organ) and to express gratefulness to God for having brought
him and his son unscathed through the war, he wrote a
Salmo per coro e orchestra (Psalm for chorus and orchestra) in
1944-45. In spite of having “won” the
competition and being recognized as a considerable musical talent, the
unfortunate timing of the onset of World-War II and Finzi’s early death in
1945 undoubtedly contributes to the fact that the work and profile of Aldo
Finzi remains fairly unknown outside Italy. It is our great privilege to
rediscover and record Aldo Finzi’s music. The symphonic poem,
Nunquam Sinfonia
Romana, was performed in public for the very first time by the
Ljubljana State Radio Orchestra, conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky, in
Portogruaro on the 20 September 2000. |
Antonin
Dvořák,
Symphony No. 9,
From the New
World, was the first work Dvořák composed in America. The
America that greeted Dvořák was an exciting and ever-changing one. The
freshness and energy of the music seems to symbolize the composer’s initial
excitement at arriving in the bustling city of New York. For Dvořák, the
influence of American music lay in its rich native culture, particularly in its
folk song and plantation music. He created this much-loved masterpiece by
skilfully blending Bohemian melodies with the contrasting rhythms of American
grass-roots music. In the composer’s own words, his symphony simply conveys
“impressions and greetings” of a new world and he insisted many times, “I
never would have written it quite like that if I had never seen America.” The
public rehearsal of the symphony on December 15, 1893 was a sensational
success. The New York Herald carried
a review the following day, describing how “a large audience of usually
tranquil Americans” were “enthusiastic
to the point of frenzy… and applauding like the most excitable
‘Italianissimi’ in the world.” |
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