Romances de salon inédites du 19e siècle Vignudelli Malferrari - TC810003

Throughout the 19th century, the chamber song was one of the most common ways of writing, making andexperiencing music. It involved a multitude of poets, composers and singers, some of them professionals(theatre composers, quality musicians, opera stars), others amateurs. This repertoire has been studied especiallywith regards the work of the great opera composers – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi – or the later output ofthe specialist Francesco Paolo Tosti, but in reality it is a very widespread phenomenon that gave rise to someworthy compositions, even though to appreciate them one should not forget that the context of their use, thenature of their performers and the very aesthetics of drawing room music called for values different from thoseof the theatre: spontaneity, ease, immediacy (values that also the “great opera composers” adhered to whenwriting for the drawing room). Drawing on unpublished manuscripts owned by the Liszt Institute of Bologna,the soprano Barbara Vignudelli and the pianist Stefano Malferrari offer us a superb performance of thiscollection which presents an exemplary sample of the variety of styles and formal solutions used by composerscompletely outside the ranks of famous names, and yet able to compose short pieces that hold some pleasantsurprises for the listener.