Azzaio / Rasi / Bassotto - Accademia Strumentale Italiana - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

'His music tastes good' this was Debussy's tribute to the art of Deodat de Severac (1872-1921). Goodness and love are words that recur frequently when speaking of Severac, so much so that the pianist Blanche Selva - his teacher and biographer - wrote 'The soul of Severac's music is love, because true love, in reality, is an aspiration, a cry, a caress of goodness.'Born in Apulia, a graduate of the conservatoire in Bari, Serena Valluzzi now gives recitals across Europe, while engaged as professor of piano at the conservatoire in Foggia. This album of Deodat de Severac marks her debut on Piano Classics, and is distinguished with the sensitive musicianship which won her prizes at the Busoni International Piano Competition and elsewhere. Descended from an ancient Languedoc family, related on his mother's side to the Aragons of Spain, Severac received his first music lessons from his painter father. He studied and worked further afield, becoming a friend and assistant to Isaac Albeniz, but his heart and his musical language remained rooted in his native Languedoc. Thus he was inspired to write en Languedoc, premiered by his friend (and Ravel's) Riccardo Vines in 1905. Impressionism meets folkloric colour and melody in the five movements of en Languedoc, evoking a lakeside reverie, a horseback gallop, a village feast and a profound elegy. This 'Coin de cimetiere au printemps' (Cemetery Corner in Spring) is one of his most inspired works his friend Alfred Cortot admired it's 'resignation and ardour, tenderness and bitterness', with 'a long, slow melody that expands in all it's religious fervour and inconsolable melancholy.'Cerdana is another vividly picturesque five-movement suite, cousin to the likes of Albeniz's Iberia and Granados' Goyescas, deserving recognition alongside them as a major cycle of Franco-Spanish impressionism from the early 20th century. Serena Valluzz

The Art of Fugue is both Johann Sebastian Bach's opus summum and last complete work, presumably undertaken between1740 and 1742. Die Kunst der Fuga (KdF hereafter), in the form and the order presented in the Berlin Autograph, has all the appearance of a finished work featuring 14 fugues and canons, all based upon a single original theme, serving as the work's foundation and with the individual pieces progressing in an increasing order of difficulty and contrapuntal perfection. This brief study sets out to attempt a switch in perspective, shifting from the 'point of view' of the First Printed Edition - through which the KdF has traditionally been examined by the vast majority of scholars - to that of the Berlin Autograph. Despite having already been studied and collated with the 1751 and 1752 editions, the autograph has always been viewed by the dominant ideology as incomplete; little more than a preparatory stage for it's printed counterparts. Only in recent times have scholars started to note that the KdF as found in the autograph manuscript at the time of it's completion might well stand comparison with the alleged 'final version' of the printed editions, and thus may be elevated to the full dignity of an Alte Fassung. And this study would argue that the Berlin Autograph contains, in fact, the latest and 'closest-to-final' version of the KdF, whilst the First Printed Edition is entirely the result of the conjoint efforts of Bach's children and students as there is no proof that Bach was ever involved in preparatory works concerning any other of it's pieces. Furthermore, the order displayed in the Berlin Autograph appears decidedly more logical and InchartisticInch than that of the First Printed Edition.

Album Tracks 1. O Villanella Quando All'acqua Vai 2. Fra Quante Donne Sono Al Mondo Belle 3. Vecchie Letrose 4. La Morte Di Marito 5. Tre Donne Belle Fanno Gran Battaglia 6. Questi Capelli D'or 7. Fontana Che Dai Acqua a Dui Valluni 8. Voria, Crudel, Tornare 9. Chi Passa Per Sta Strada 10. Madonna Tu Mi Fai Lo Scurrucciato 11. Catalina Apr'a Finestra Moresca Prima 12. Maldetta Sia Mia Sorte Sventurata 13. Che Sia Malditta L'acqua Sta Matina 14. O Lucia Miau 15. Quanno Nascette Ninno 16. Madonna Mia Pieta