Violin Sonatas Vol. 1 by Alessandro Fagiuoli

George Antheil

Alessandro Fagiuoli | Alessia Toffanin

Violin Sonatas Vol. 1

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: CAvi
UPC: 4260085532391
Catnr: AVI 8553239
Release date: 08 March 2019
Buy

1 CD ✓ in stock	€ 19.95	Buy

Label
CAvi

UPC
4260085532391

Catalogue number
AVI 8553239

Release date
08 March 2019

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

George Antheil - The bad boy of Music

The four Violin Sonatas

“A double life. Like his friend and colleague Miklós Rózsa, George Antheil (1900-1959) had a double life.

Not only because he – like Rózsa – scored dozen of films and at the same time strove to be recognized as a “classical” composer, but also because he led two different existences, before and after WWII

. In the twenties, Antheil was trying to establish his reputation as the torchbearer of the avant-garde: he lived mostly in Europe, scandalizing the public with his iconoclastic music and furiously percussive piano playing. His most famous compositions—the piano sonatas Airplane, Sauvage and Death of the Machines, his violin sonatas and the Ballet mécanique scored for 16 player-pianos, xylophones, and percussion—all evidence a futuristic aesthetic theory, influenced mostly by Bartók, Ornstein and Stravinsky. However, in a dramatic turn following a profound personal and artistic crisis, Antheil re-emerged, now in his early forties, as a neo-romantic, fully-integrated American composer, even, to some extent, a conservative.

The four sonatas in this first volume of his violin music exemplify the two periods of his creativity. They document Antheil's musical evolution from the percussive First, to the Dadaist-cubist Second and the more neoclassical Third. A hiatus of 25 years separate these early scores from the so-called Second Violin Sonata (i.e. his Fourth Sonata), composed in 1947-48, which is clearly a more classically structured composition. While the three pieces composed between 1923 and 1924 (the Third) emerged from a pervasive influence of Stravinsky's early masterpieces, the Fourth Sonata is more under the spell of Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

To Antheil, the Russians served, paradoxically, as models for a possible American music, mostly because they did not give up tonality, they knew too well how to handle (and hide) folkloric material and they could at the same time counterbalance what Antheil considered the pernicious influence of Schoenberg's twelve-tone.

……“ (Excerpt of the Booklet Notes by Mauro Piccinini)

Artist(s)

Alessandro Fagiuoli (violin)

Violinist Alessandro Fagiuoli‘s artistic journey has always been marked by passion for innovation and curiosity about unusual styles and repertoires. He studied at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, later specialising with Enzo Porta in twentieth-century violin repertoire. After a scholarship obtained from “La Biennale di Venezia” on the subject of “Late Nono performance practices”, he further investigated modern and contemporary music, working with some of the most important Italian contemporary music ensembles, as well as founding in Venice the Paul Klee String Quartet.
As a soloist and as first violin of the quartet, he performed in many important international festivals and concert seasons; he went on tours in all of Europe, in the States, in Russia, China, giving numerous world premieres.
Thanks to the close collaboration with French pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud, Fagiuoli had the chance to deepen his knowledge of the French violin and piano repertoire. With Armengaud he also issued the world premiere recording of Louis Aubert‘s huge Violin Sonata (1926). In duo with Alessia Toffanin he recorded for many European labels. Of particular interest also the release of the complete Philip Glass string quartets.
He held workshops and master classes in Italy, France and China. Since 2014 Fagiuoli gives a master class on contemporary string quartet repertoire at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, as well as violin and string quartet workshops at the “Ischia Musica” courses.

less

Alessia Toffanin (piano)

Alessia Toffanin holds degrees in piano, chamber music and vocal chamber music, from the Venice, Padua and Rovigo conservatories. She was awarded prizes and mentions as soloist and in piano duo in many competitions, among them the “Città di Albenga”, “Città di Bardolino”, Città di Stresa” “K. Czerny” and “Roma ‘90”. Her passion and interest for twentieth-century and avantgarde music led Toffanin to collaborate with the Padua-based Interensemble group, giving concerts in many prestigious festivals, such as “Les Musiques” (Marseille), “Ensems” (Valencia), as well as at the Auditorium National of Madrid, the Dublin National Concert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall in London, the M.I.T., Harvard University (Boston) and at New York University.
At the Université Evry (Paris), under the guidance of Jean-Pierre Armengaud, she deepened her knowledge of the musical repertoire of Paris at the turn of the century.
A dancer herself, she worked as a pianist with many étoiles: Luciana Savignano, Toni Candeloro, Marco Pierin, Rosario Suarez.
As a member of the Interensemble, she recorded with Cramps, Rivoalto, and Taukay labels. In duo with violinist Alessandro Fagiuoli, for the CD label Blue Serge, she recorded works by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Milhaud, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Amendola. She plays with the Venice La Fenice orchestra, works as music assistant at La Biennale di Venezia for the “Biennale Musica College”. She is also teacher of piano accompaniment at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice.

less

Composer(s)

George Antheil

Thanks to his autobiography Bad boy of music, the American composer George Antheil was quite well-known for his anecdotes, but his music was virtually forgotten until the Holland Festival in 1976. Unfortunately, the Telefunken record with violinist Vera Beths, pianist Reinbert de Leeuw and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble that was made at the time has never become available on cd. Fortunately, there are more recent recordings of, for example, the Ballet mécanique, the Jazz Symphony, the violin sonatas, the piano sonatas and Fighting the waves for the play by Yeats. The mechanical component of Antheil’s music does not only hark back to the Bruitism of the 1920’s and Stravinsky Sacre, but also anticipates on the minimalism of the composers from the 1970’s....

Thanks to his autobiography Bad boy of music, the American composer George Antheil was quite well-known for his anecdotes, but his music was virtually forgotten until the Holland Festival in 1976. Unfortunately, the Telefunken record with violinist Vera Beths, pianist Reinbert de Leeuw and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble that was made at the time has never become available on cd. Fortunately, there are more recent recordings of, for example, the Ballet mécanique, the Jazz Symphony, the violin sonatas, the piano sonatas and Fighting the waves for the play by Yeats.
The mechanical component of Antheil’s music does not only hark back to the Bruitism of the 1920’s and Stravinsky Sacre, but also anticipates on the minimalism of the composers from the 1970’s. The style quotations from the second violin sonata betray the liberating effect of Charles Ives on American music. It is therefore only logical that Antheil also could not get away from jazz influences.
(Source: Musicalifeiten.nl)

less