Alfredo Casella - Sinfonia per Orchestra op. 63, Italia op 11

With the large but unavoidable exception of that visionary and unpredictable maverick Malipiero, Alfredo Casella (1882-1947) was probably the foremost Italian composer of the last century who most ideally embodied Martucci's anti-verismo aspirations for his national music. And, among Casella's numerous concertante and miscellaneous orchestral works, this third and last of his three symphonies, dated 1939-40, commissioned and premiered by the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock and then acclaimed throughout Europe during the 1940s, represents the pinnacle of his mastery of instrumental writing, both in form and inspiration. In fact, this highly significant first recording of one of the most serious-minded and exalted symphonies of the mid 20th century should mark a long-overdue rediscovery of the supreme importance of Casella.

Its three-quarter-hour span encompasses a far-ranging musical universe: an opening Allegro mosso, dominated by a majestic, large-souled main idea that not only contains the seeds of many of the whole work's subsidiary themes but also makes a striking and unforgettable reappearance at the finale's peroration. The Andante movement announces a serenely sad, suspended lyric tune whose emotionally fraught progress is rudely interrupted by a militaristic interlude, the minatory tone of which anticipates the near-demonic two-part Scherzo minore and Scherzo maggiore. This vast structure comes to resolution in a tumultuous Rondo where a populist celebratory frenzy is overshadowed by ominous undertones quickly dispatched by a brief, summary dismissal. Together with his final work, the Missa pro pace of 1947, this symphony is as good as early-modernist Italian music gets, though this writer has heard an air-check of the Second Symphony and finds that also well worth reviving on disc.

Written 30 years before the symphony and helping to establish Casella as a young composer of moment, the frequently recorded Italia, subtitled "rhapsody for full orchestra," consists of a patriotic farrago of folk tunes that this listener must confess to having long considered a rather schlocky concoction. But conductor Alun Francis here pulls off an astonishing interpretation which underlines the work's dramatic intensity and authenticity in a manner never before encountered on disc, thus redeeming the whole score.

But the Third Symphony, a noble, humanistic example of mid-century neo-Classicism, infused with Casella's early admiration for Stravinsky and the French school, is the main attraction here, as sympathetically and authoritatively laid out by Francis and his Cologne collaborators. On many different grounds, this release is as recommendable as possible.

Fanfare, Paul A. Snook, Jan-Feb 2010