 Giulio Ricordi a vingt-trois ans lorsqu'il rejoint la maison d'éditions musicales fondée par son grand-père : fin, intelligent et cultivé, il se révèle rapidement un homme d'affaires exceptionnel au flair infaillible pour détecter et attirer des compositeurs de talent, doublé d'un agent hors-pair sachant soutenir, accompagner et guider "ses" musiciens dans leurs choix artistiques. Il deviendra ainsi l'éditeur de Ponchielli, Catalani, Giordano et Puccini auquel il fut particulièrement lié, et c'est à lui que l'on doit Othello et Falstaff, ultimes opéras d'un Verdi vieillissant qu'après dix ans d'efforts et de stratagèmes il parviendra à convaincre de sortir de sa retraite pour se remettre à composer. S'il fut un éditeur de génie, sa musique en revanche (publiée sous le pseudonyme de Jules Burgmein) n'est pas passée à la postérité et on le comprend en découvrant ces miniatures pour piano à quatre mains légères, faciles et souvent anecdotiques. Ces chromos très "fin de siècle" au charme désuet et aux titres éloquents rappellent parfois étrangement les musiques qui accompagneront bientôt le cinéma muet. Si l'audition in extenso de ces pièces de caractère s'avère un peu lassante, quelques unes issues notamment du Livre des Sérénades (Sérénades Arabe, Napolitaine et Mauresque) conservent toutefois une certaine saveur et résistent à une écoute répétée. (Alexis Brodsky) Giulio Ricordi (1840-1912) was the grandson of Giovanni, who founded the family firm of music publishers that bears his name to this day. Were it not for the successful efforts of Giulio in luring Verdi out of retirement to work with Arrigo Boito, we would not now have Otello and Falstaff; and had it not been for Ricordi’s careful management, the young and headstrong Puccini may have burnt out before writing the stream of lyric masterpieces which made his name and his fortune. However, Ricordi was a dilettante musician of considerable gifts, as this album of his piano-duet music reveals, and as Verdi himself was prepared to recognise: ‘When I look at the young people in my circle,’ Verdi wrote to Ghislanzoni, librettist of Aida, ‘I can tell you that Giulio Ricordi is the one with the best knowledge of music.’ He published his music under the pseudonym of Burgmein, perhaps to circumvent accusations of a conflict of interest, from which small deception arose an extraordinary situation in which the aged Liszt wrote to Ricordi praising the music of Burgmein and asking after its composer: ‘He is a master musician: ingenious, skilful, pleasant, elegant, distinguished, refined and expert.’ Perhaps the scoring of these pieces indicates that Ricordi had one eye on the lucrative market for domestic consumption, but they are ingenious in effect and crafted for skilful performers: indeed, the final ‘Chinese Serenade’ on the disc exploits harmonic partials on the piano by means of a then-novel pedal effect. There is also an exuberant Venetian Carnival suite, a Doll’s Waltz and several other witty miniatures before the collection of 15 nationally coloured serenades. The booklet notes by Giancarlo Simonacci give full details of Ricordi’s life and work.
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