Malipiero: Violin Concertos 1 and 2

Malipiero: Violin Concertos 1 and 2

8.573075 (Naxos Records, CD)

DDD
FIRST RELEASE (10 June 2022)

Playing time: 69'24"
Tracks: 10
Booklet pages: 10
℗ 2022 Naxos Rights (Europe) Ltd
© 2022 Naxos Rights (Europe) Ltd
Main country of recording: Italy
Country of manufacture: Germany
Reviewer: Giuseppe Pennisi
Review of Malipiero: Violin Concertos 1 and 2 published on 24 August 2022

Paolo Chiavacci, violin (track 1-3 and 8-10)
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma
Francesco La Vecchia, conductor

Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973):

Violin Concerto No 1 (1932)
1 Allegro (con spirito)
2 Lento, ma non troppo
3 Allegro

Per una favola cavalleresca (1914–15, revised ?1920) (first recording)
4 I
5 II
6 III
7 IV

Violin Concerto No 2 (1963)
8 Allegro
9 Non troppo lento
10 Alquanto mosso

Recorded 5 May 2013 at the Auditorium Conciliazione, Rome, Italy (tracks 1-3), and 5 January 2013 (tracks 4–7), and 15–16 June 2012 (tracks 8–10) at the OSR Studios, Rome, Italy.

This release couples Gian Francesco Malipiero's two contrasting violin concertos with the first recording of his kaleidoscopic orchestral work Per una favola cavalleresca, evoking legendary scenes of love, tournaments, battles, moonbeams and heroes. Malipiero's First Violin Concerto is one of his most beautiful and joyful works, a remarkable achievement for a composer who is said to have played the violin badly in his youth. His Second Violin Concerto, written thirty years later, sounds astonishingly different on a first hearing, but reveals itself to be inspired by the same lyrical impulse as the earlier concerto. This album will be released in the 140th anniversary year of Malipiero's birth.