ALMERIGO GIROTTO, LIRICHE DA CAMERA PER VOCE E PIANOFORTE - Zoccarato, Lanza

ALMERIGO GIROTTO, LIRICHE DA CAMERA PER VOCE E PIANOFORTE  ( CVLD281 )

Author : Almerigo Girotto
Performer : Tiziana Zoccarato (soprano), Edoardo Lanza (piano)

Tracks

Two Veronese Songs on Popular Texts
Conte Marin (6.53) / La Pastorela (4.27)

Four Suites on Popular Veronese Verses
I Suite: Allemanda (2.31) / Siciliana (2.19) / Corrente (2.14)
II Suite: Prelude (3.23) / Fughetta (2.16) / Intermezzo (1.13) / Bagatelle (1.39) / Ostinato (1.22)
III Suite: Morning (2.19) / Cantilena (1.42) / Finale (1.29)
Suite IV: Introduction (2.27) / Pavana (2.32) / Gagliarda (2.02)

Triptych on verses by Neri Pozza
Epitaph to Mary (3.08) / Wedding at the full moon (3.33) / Remove your beautiful hands from your face… (2.32)

TECHNICAL NOTES

24bit/88kHz original recording made at Area Magister Studio,
Preganziol, Italy on March 10th and June 1st, 2016

Edoardo Lanza plays Steinway & Sons D274 Concert Grand Piano
prepared and tuned by Silvano Zanta

Production: Velut Luna
Executive producer: Marco Lincetto
Musical Producer: Edoardo Lanza, Tiziana Zoccarato
Recording, editing, mixing and mastering: Marco Lincetto
Design: Limage
Photos: Marco Lincetto
English text: Patrizio Castelli

Notes

ALMERIGO GIROTTO was born blind in S. Paolo de! Brazil, in 1897, to Italian immigrant parents, but was entrusted to his maternal grandmother in Vicenza at the age of two. At the age of nine, he was taken to the "L. Configliachi" Institute for the Blind in Padua, where he remained until 1914, also receiving, under the guidance of Luigi Bottazzo, his first musical education (Harmony and Organ).
In 1941, urged by the insistence of his friends, he suddenly took, in a single session, the exams of Fugue and Composition at the "Pollini" in Padua, passing them splendidly and with extreme ease. These were important goals achieved, but without practical consequences, thwarted as they were by his shy character and fatally directed towards a total pessimism (certainly not attenuated by the heavy atmosphere of war), which in fact conditioned not only the success of his works but even the simple knowledge of them.
He had wanted to live almost always in Vicenza, a city to which he was tied by nostalgia and affection, and here, in the post-war period, he spent the rest of his existence: a long wait, a dignified and conscious start towards the great silence. Thus, in April 1967, his human voice fell silent, while his singing voice had already been extinguished for many years.
If Almerigo Girotto's life had a normal duration, his creative season, which took place more or less in the fifteen years between 1925 and 1940, was very short: a slow maturation, therefore, (which, if it is characteristic of many artists, in him is explained rather by the conditions of his life) followed by complete renunciation (and this is explained by his psychology).
Among the many enthusiastic opinions expressed by his contemporary critics, we symbolically report here what Franco Abbiati wrote in the Corriere della Sera, the day after the concert held, by illustrious performers, at the Angelicum in 1947 (the year in which Girotto was also presented at the Venice Festival of Contemporary Music): ''his works for voice, for violin, for piano show a spiritual maturity and a constructive logic worthy of the best modern composers. Their content is often dramatic, their language often hard and violent, their texture is thinned to chaste, slender, sweetly lyrical expressions…”

Considerations on the Lyrics for voice and piano by A. Girotto
What is truly remarkable in Almerigo Girotto's compositions, and in particular in his lyrics, is the admirable combination of tradition and modernity, respectful classicism and highly personal originality, solid compositional technique and fresh melodic spontaneity, which also manages to effectively render the popular character of the Veronese dialect lyrics he set to music.
While maintaining a solid tonal structure at its core, Girotto elegantly and effortlessly manages dense and dissonant harmonic combinations, sometimes clearly polytonal, and makes use of rhythmic formulas and timbral effects that are always varied, interesting and appropriate.