Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
6 Bagatelles
Undici Variazioni, sur le Menuet "Falstaff" de G. Verdi
Chopin-Phantasie en si mineur
Scherzino
Impromptus, op. 13, IEW 7
3 Pièces pour piano, op. 13, IEW 10

Constantino Catena, piano

Steinway D

Né et mort à Venise, Wolf-Ferrari a comme beaucoup de ses compatriotes essentiellement composés pour l'opéra où il connut un vif succès au début du 20è siècle. Mais on ne connaît pratiquement plus rien de lui actuellement et c'est fort dommage. Les quelques pièces pour piano ici enregistrées, dont la moitié d'inédites, nous permettent de rentrer par la petite porte dans le corpus de l'auteur. Il en ressort notamment grâce à ses liens avec l'Allemagne une impression d'avoir repris à son compte Schumann et Brahms, parfois Chopin, et de les passer au tamis de la couleur italienne. Si l'on ne va pas crier au génie, il n'en demeure pas moins de fines bagatelles, des variations sur le menuet du Falstaff de Verdi qui lorgnent vers le classicisme, des impromptus et un opus 14 d'un romantisme impressionniste en plein début de période moderne. Costantino Catena lui rend un bel hommage musical à l'aide d'un bon Steinway bien capté au Palazzo Chigi d'Ariccia. Il y croit, et nous aussi. (Nicolas Mesnier-Nature)

Sumptuous, late-Romantic but little-known piano music including several world premiere recordings. The name of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876- 1948) is now emerging from the shadow cast by his wartime collaboration with Italy’s Fascist regime. Operas such as I quattro rusteghi and I gioielli della Madonna occupy a place on the fringes of the repertoire, and Brilliant Classics have made a persuasive case for him as a composer of chamber music in a post- Brahmsian mould with the release of his piano trios (BC95624). This album was recommended by Classics Today for the ‘eloquently sustained’ performance of Trio Archè, displaying ‘a whimsical discursiveness… that might be described as the lovechild of Schubert and Fauré.’ Much the same might be said of Wolf- Ferrari’s piano music on the evidence of this new recording by the Italian pianist Costantino Catena, who has made many well-received albums with the Camerata Tokyo. To open the album, Catena has made his own completion of an early, substantial (19-minute) Bagatelle that Wolf- Ferrari left unfinished. Theatricality and high contrast mark the Bagatelle throughout, as one would expect from an experienced composer for the stage, and they lend beguiling variety to the other first recordings here, of Variations on the minuet from Verdi’s Falstaff, a Chopin-Phantasie in B minor and a Scherzino, all dating from Wolf-Ferrari’s prodigious twenties when he was the toast of new Italian music. Wolf-Ferrari turned to the Romantic genre of character-piece in three Impromptus Op.13 (1904) and three Klavierstücke Op.14 (1905), but he addressed the form in a personal and authentic manner. Some of the rhythmic sophistication may remind us of Brahms, and the delicately embroidered harmony of Hugo Wolf, but Wolf-Ferrari’s characteristic sweetness of tone does not descend into decorative mannerism or affected sentimentalism: he was, to the core, a German-Italian composer with a foot on both sides of the Alps.