CELLO SOLO - Giambattista Valdettaro

CELLO SOLO ( CVLD250 )

Author : Zoltan Kodali; Bernhard Cossmann; Luigi Dallapiccola
Performer : Giambattista Valdettaro

Notes

"GIAMBATTISTA VALDETTARO"

He began studying the cello in Verona, his hometown, under the guidance of Cesare Bonzanini (one of Camillo Oblach's most illustrious students) and continued with Benedetto Mazzacurati, graduating with top marks and honors from the "San Pietro a Majella" conservatory in Naples. He later perfected his skills in Naples with Willy La Volpe and in Zurich with Pierre Fournier.
He began his career in 1965 with a tour in the USA and Canada as first cello with the chamber orchestra "San Pietro a Majella" directed by Renato Ruotolo, also playing a solo role.
As a soloist and in various chamber groups he has also played in Europe and Italy. As a soloist with the orchestra he has played with various conductors such as Gabriele Gandini, Umberto Cattini, Angelo Campori, Wolfgang Scheidt, Piero Bellugi.
Since 1971 he has formed a stable duo with the pianist Ines Scarlino with whom he has held concerts in Italy and abroad. During his chamber music activity he has also had the opportunity to collaborate with countless, important Italian and foreign partners.
He was first cello of some important Italian orchestras, including the Pomeriggi Musicali of Milan, the Filarmonia Veneta, the Orchestra of the Teatro la Fenice of Venice.
In 1987 he published a revision of Bach's suites for solo cello with the publisher Zanibon (reprinted in 2003 by the publishing house Armelin) and then performed them in full at the Festivals of Peñíscola (Spain 1991), Engelberg (Switzerland, 1992) and Florence (Florence Symphonietta, 1994).
In 1998 his recording of the suites themselves was released, produced by Sicut Sol editrice and distributed by the magazine Fedeltà del Suono, and was welcomed with favour by the most authoritative critics (CD classics, Amadeus).
From 1971 to 2009 he was a cello teacher at the Padua Conservatory. He plays an 18th century Venetian cello attributed to a maker of the Montagnana school. He used this instrument for the present recording, in which he used two bows built by Walter Barbiero.

Zoltàn Kodàly (Kecskemét 1882 - Budapest 1967)
He is, together with Béla Bartòk, the greatest Hungarian composer of the first half of the 20th century and, like Bartòk, a scholar of Magyar musical folklore. In this work too, the folkloristic material is elaborated, in the three movements into which the sonata is divided, sometimes in a rhapsodic way, sometimes with a more marked rhythmic scansion, wisely exploiting the virtuosic and timbric possibilities of the instrument.

Bernhard Cossmann (Dessau 1822 - Frankfurt am Main 1910)
German virtuoso, appointed professor at the Moscow Conservatory in 1860; he is considered the founder of the Russian cello school. Later, in 1878, professor in Frankfurt am Main. He was a friend of the Italian cellist Alfredo Piatti who dedicated his famous twelve caprices to him.

Luigi Dallapiccola (Pisino, Istria 1904 - Florence 1975)
Initially of Central European education, he moved to Florence in 1922, where he completed his studies with Vito Frazzi and where he remained for the rest of his life. At the beginning of the 1940s his musical language passed to dodecaphony, of which he became one of the major representatives in Italy.
His friendship with the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadò contributed to the creation of two works: Ciaccona, Intermezzo and Adagio, for cello solo (1945) and Dialogues for cello and Orchestra (1960). The poetic meaning of Ciaccona, Intermezzo and Adagio can be fully understood if we observe that, at the end of the last piece, the Author writes: September 1945 DEO GRATIAS. In fact, this work almost seems like a summary of the tragedy that has just passed: after the first two movements, characterized by an implacable drama that always returns to impose itself (only occasionally interrupted by more delicate moments), in the Adagio the very slow initial intervals of fifths (pianissimo, without color, Dallapiccola prescribes), give the sense of an absolute void: the rubble from which, after a while, a gust of hope rises…
- Giambattista Valdettaro