Ennio Morricone / Luciano Berio / Bruno Maderna / Luigi Nono: Sound and Silence - Four Pioneering Modernist Italian Composers, 3CD Set

•    3CD collection featuring four pioneering modernist Italian composers.

Although he was a superb melodist, it was in his deployment of a whole landscape of non-musical sounds, dissonant harmonies and silence, that Ennio Morricone revolutionised film music. His audacity, and his diverse musical palette (manifest in the spaghetti westerns he scored for Sergio Leone) came less from cinema than from the pioneering post-war generation of 'New Music' composers.

In 1958 Morricone attended a summer courses in New Music in Darmstadt, Germany; where he immersed himself in the works of the leading figures of contemporary music; Stockhausen, Varèse, Berio, Ligeti, Cage, Messiaen, Boulez, Maderna, Nono. The mood was one of excitement and adventure where the outer limits of music's artistic and conceptual universe were questioned and fearlessly explored.

Morricone described Darmstadt as a turning point in his life. He felt compelled to react to what he learned there, feeling that the experience helped define his personal voice, his musical identity. Certainly Morricone's signature styles are are easily detected in the three delightful early soundtracks featured in this edition; including among the selections from il Federale, the maestro's very first film as primary composer.

Morricone respected his Italian contemporaries, Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna and Luigi Nono. He was deeply impressed by two of Nono's works; Il canto sospeso for solo soprano, alto and tenor, mixed chorus and orchestra, and Cori di Didone for mixed chorus end orchestra, which he claimed, "hit me down in my core". Both compositions are included here along with Berio's Sinfonia, for orchestra and eight amplified voices, a rich collage of words and voices and sounds which has been compared to a live 1960s Happening. One of the principal modernist works of the era.

In 1954, Berio and Maderna founded Italy's first studio of electronic music, in Milan. The first work to emerge, the radio study, Ritratto di Città (Portrait of a City) is presented here in its entirety along with other significant works by Berio and Maderna including the first Sequenza for flute, and Gesti for recorder, virtuoso pieces that the player to the limits of his or her technical ability. Bruno Maderna's genius as both composer and conductor is showcased by his magical Serenata no. 2 and by his elegant account of Valses Nobles Et Sentimentales.

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE

DISC ONEENNIO MORRICONE
LA VOGLIA MATTA (The Crazy Desire)

1    Agosto jazz
2    Caporal Twist
3    Nuvole
4    Sole e sogni
5    Desiderio di te
6    Francesca
7    Un povero matusa
8    Miraggio africano
9    I nuovi giovani
10    Nuvole (Scat version)
11    Caporal Twist No. 2
12    Ritorno a casa
DICIOTTENNI AL SOLE
(Eighteen in the Sun)
13    Nicole (Instrumental version)
14    Cha cha cha delle diciottenni
15    Cos'e un bacio
16    Nicole (Vocal version)
17    Swingin' ischia
18    Diciottenni in piscina
19    Evelyn
20    Franca
21    Arrivano le ragazze
22    Nicole e Nicola
23    Una vivace commedia American
24    Marcetta disinvolta
25    Atmosfera giallo rosa
26    Lello
27    Nicole (Harpsichord version)
28    Night romantic
ENNIO MORRICONE:
IL FEDERALE (The Fascist)
29    Titoli
30    Combattimento
31    Tema di Bonafé
32    Colloquio
33    Arcovazzi e Bonafé in viaggio
34    Ritrovamento
35    Desiderio di Matilde
36    Fuga di Bonafé
37    Pullman in avaria
38    Inseguimento
39    Campo minato
40    Bonafe' al convento
41    La fine del viaggio
42    Finale

DISC TWO

LUCIANO BERIO

Sinfonia, for orchestra and eight amplified voices (original version in Four Movements)

1  Section I

2  Section II (O King)

3  Section III (With quietly flowing movement)

4  Section IV

The Swingle Singers Orchestre Philharmonique de la RTF. Conductor: Bruno Maderna

5  Sequenza No. 1, for flute solo Severino Gazzelloni: flute

6  Différences, for flute, clarinet, viola, cello, harp and magnetic tape

Conductor: Luciano Berio 7 Gesti, for recorder solo Frans Brüggen: recorder

LUCIANO BERIO AND BRUNO MADERNA

8 Ritratto di Città (Portrait of the City: Study for a Radio Play) (1954)

Produced at the Studio di Fonologia Musicale in Milan of RAI, Italian Radio and Television. Text: Roberto Leydi Voices: Nando Gazzolo and Ottavio Fanfani.

DISC THREE

BRUNO MADERNA

1  Serenata No. 2, for eleven instruments

The English Chamber Orchestra Conductor: Bruno Maderna

MAURICE RAVEL

Valses Nobles Et Sentimentales

2  Modéré

3 Assez Lent

4  Modéré

5 Assez Animé

6  Presque Lent

7 Assez Vif

8  Moins Vif

9  Epilogue: Lent

RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Bruno Maderna

BRUNO MADERNA

10  Notturno, for magnetic tape

LUIGI NONO

11  Omaggio a Emilio Vedova, for Magnetic tape

IL CANTO SOSPESO (The Suspended Chant), for soprano, alto, tenor, mixed chorus and orchestra

12  Orchestra

13  Coro a cappella

14  Soprano, Contralto, Tenore e Orchestra

15  Orchestra

16 Tenore e Orchestra

17  Coro e Orchestra

18  Soprano, Coro Femminile e Orchestra

19  Orchestra

20  Coro e timpani

West German Radio Choir and Orchestra of Cologne Ilse Hollweg: soprano; Eva Bornemann: alto; Friedrich Lenz: tenor. Conductor: Bruno Maderna; Chorus master: Bernhard Zimmermann

21  Cori di Didone, for mixed chorus and percussion

West German Radio Choir of Cologne. Chorus master: Bernhard Zimmermann