Casella, Alfredo

Alfredo Casella – »A notte alta« op. 30bis (1917/21) per pianoforte e orchestra

(b. Turin, 25 July 1883 – d. Rome, 5 March 1947)

Lento molto, misterioso (p. 1) – Grave (p. 2) – Poco più mosso, ma sempre molto calmo (p. 7) –
animando poco a poco (p. 8) – Alquanto animato (p. 12) – Andante molto tranquillo e calmo, quasi adagio (p. 16) – Poco animando (p. 26) – Più mosso, scorrevole (p. 30) – Più calmo, ma però sempre più mosso del Tempo I (p. 34) – Lento, dolcissimo, misterioso (p. 38) – Agitando (p. 41) – Allegro animato e veemente (p. 44) – Presto (p. 50) –
Lento molto, misterioso, come sul principio (p. 53) – Grave (p. 55) – Alquanto movendo (p. 56) – Lento, molto grave (p. 57) – Andante molto tranquillo e calmo, quasi adagio (p. 58)

Preface (by Christoph Schlüren)
In the summer of 1916, Alfredo Casella began with the composition of his Elegia eroica (Heroic Elegy) that is dedicated ”to the memory of the sons of Italy fallen for her greatness”. This work – certainly one of his most dissonant and significant compositions – was received as a scandal at its première in Rome’s Augusteo under the baton of Rhené-Baton. In the spring of 1917 the recently founded National Music Society started its work and organized in its first year six concerts in Rome’s Santa Cecilia Hall and four other concerts in Milan, Turin, Bologna and Ferrara, one in Paris, and a final concert in Rome’s Costanzi Theater with Igor Stravinsky conducting his Firebird Suite, Feu d’artifice, and Petrouchka Suite. 112 works were performed during this first season, ”of which 102 were Italian. Composers represented were:“ Respighi, Malipiero, Pizzetti, Casella, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Marco Enrico Bossi, Vincenzo Tommassini, Luigi Perrachio, Adolfo Gandino, Carlo Perinello, Renzo Bossi, Francesco Mantica, Victor de Sabata, Domenico Alaleona, Fernando Liuzzi, Alberto Gasco, Giulia Recli, Vittorio Gui, Riccardo Zandonai, and Vincenzo Davico. In the first concert the composers had been Ottorino Respighi, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Alfredo Casella: the leading exponents of the ”young guard”. Casella resumed: „It was really a ’united front’ of intelligence against mediocrity and dilettantism, and such a fraternity of artists have never since been seen among us. Life separated us later, and even set in opposition to me as enemies some of those musicians who fought by my side in the beginning. The does not alter the significance of 1917, the year in which the renovation of our national musical consciousness really began. …

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