Michele Esposito 1855–1929 Music for violin and piano Compact Disc 1
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1 2 3
Sonata No.1 in G Op.32 I. Moderato II. Lento III. Allegro vivace
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Irish Rhapsody No.1 Op.51
46’40
6’34 7’44 5’15
Compact Disc 2
1 2 3
Sonata No.2 in E minor Op.46 I. Allegro moderato II. Andantino III. Allegro con fuoco
7’27 4’43 5’52
4 5 6 7
Sonata No.3 in A Op.67 I. Affettuosamente II. Allegretto moderato III. Andante cantabile IV. Allegretto grazioso
9’01 3’18 4’35 5’10
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Irish Rhapsody No.2 Op.54
14’50
5 6
From Five Irish Melodies Op.56 No.3 ‘Silent, O Moyle’ No.5 ‘When through life’
4’08 2’54
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From Two Irish Airs Op.57 No.2 ‘The silver tip’ (Irish reel)
1’33
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From Five Irish Melodies Op.56 No.2 ‘The Coulin’
52’40
12’07
Carmelo Andriani violin Vincenzo Maltempo piano 3’18
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Michele Esposito: An Italian in Ireland Born on 29 September 1855 in the town of Castellamare di Stabia, during the dying years of the Kingdom of Naples, Michele Esposito studied the piano with the Thalberg pupil Beniamino Cesi and composition with Paolo Serrao at the Real Collegio di Musica in Naples. An outstanding student, he was a contemporary of Giuseppe Martucci and Alessandro Longo, and, along with older pianists such as Cesi and Constantino Palumbo, formed part of what is generally known as the Neapolitan School of pianists, whose musical interests were essentially instrumental and Teutonic in orientation. Taking the advice of Anton Rubinstein, Esposito left Naples in 1878 and settled in Paris. Here he made a modest living as a teacher and pianist, but when the chance emerged of more regular income (to support his own growing family as well as the one he had left in Naples) he moved to Dublin in 1882 to take up a teaching post at the Royal Irish Academy of Music; he settled there for the next 46 years before returning in 1928 to Italy, where he died the following year. As the Irish capital’s most important musical luminary, he taught generations of Irish pianists, gave chamber concerts at the Royal Dublin Society and founded the Dublin Orchestral Society in 1899. He was also an active composer of orchestral, chamber and piano works. Esposito’s Violin Sonata No.1 in G Op.32 dates from 1881, when the composer was living in Paris, though its publication – in London – did not take place until 1892. The restrained lyricism of the first movement’s opening melody, with its gentle syncopation and undulating accompaniment, recalls the elegance and refinement of chamber works by Saint-Saëns, whose music may well have been influential on Esposito at this time. A darker development is complemented by a radiant return of the opening melody in the piano and to this Esposito adds a touching countermelody in the violin. The slow movement, in E major, is simpler in its ternary structure and is dominated by the extended song-like theme introduced by the piano. The central paragraph continues this euphonious trend, though it is more rhythmically animated and distinctly Schumannesque in its elaborate piano writing. After the serenity of the slow movement’s coda, the finale is notably more energetic and virtuosic, in the spirit of a Hungarian csárdás. The composer makes fertile use of this material throughout, disguising its return in the reworked recapitulation before recalling it for the exhilarating closing presto. The work was first performed at the Prince’s Hall, London, by Esposito and his Italian violinist-colleague Guido Papini (who spent much time in London, Dublin and Paris)
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in July 1891; its first Irish hearing was given by the same performers at the Dublin Arts Club on 21 April 1894. Composed in 1899, the Violin Sonata No.2 in E minor Op.46 was entered for the Concours International de Musique in 1907 and was awarded first prize out of 68 entries. Among the adjudicating panel were Vincent d’Indy, Jacques Thibaud, Alfred Cortot and Pablo Casals. Apart from being awarded 2,000 francs, the prize also included publication by the Parisian firm Astruc and a performance by Thibaud and Cortot, who were then both at an early stage of their careers. The sonata was also played during the annual conference of the Incorporated Society of Musicians in Harrogate, England on 2 January 1908 by the American violinist Sigmund Beel and Esposito, and it was repeated at the Royal Dublin Society on 20 January. It was also taken up by the young English violinist May Harrison in March of that year. A more technically advanced work than its Op.32 predecessor, the Violin Sonata No.2 reveals in its first movement a much greater degree of intellectual integration in its thematic material, suggesting that Esposito had learned much in the meantime from the chamber music of Johannes Brahms. Much of the thematic material is derived from the semitonal motif (B–C) announced at the outset, a gesture that influences much of the semitonal shifts of harmony throughout the movement. Moreover, Esposito’s thinking is much more severely contrapuntal, particularly in the fine second subject, one of the composer’s most memorable inventions. The central movement, marked Andantino, effectively conflates the Scherzo and slow movement, the former represented by a playful dialogue between the pizzicato violin and quirky response from the piano (which opens and closes the movement), the latter by the more elongated melody for violin that lies at the heart of this most fecund, not to say fantastical, essay. By contrast, the more overtly romantic finale is more conventional in its handling of sonata form, but the handling of the material has a Brahmsian strength and boldness that can be felt in both the agitated first subject and the languorous second. One of the fascinating consequences of Esposito’s musical life in Dublin was his interaction with the Irish cultural revival that was gathering momentum in the 1880s and 1890s through the agencies of literature, poetry and traditional Irish music. Though he never expressed any political sympathies with Irish nationalism (unlike his children who were strongly Republican), he was, as a prominent personality in Irish musical life, unavoidably caught up in the passion for establishing cultural institutions, among them the Feis Ceoil, a distinctly Irish competitive festival of music
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launched in 1897. This gave rise to his ‘Irish’ Symphony in 1902, which won first prize at the Feis Ceoil (for a symphony based on Irish themes), and two rhapsodies for violin which, in the same mould as Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies and, more pertinently, Stanford’s six Irish Rhapsodies, combine the richness of the ethnic Irish musical tradition with a late 19th-century continental Romanticism. The Irish Rhapsody No.1 Op.51 dates from 1901 and was also performed in an orchestral version by Beel with the Dublin Orchestral Society (DOS). A prizewinning work at the Feis Ceoil of 1903, the Irish Rhapsody No.2 Op.54 of 1902 was first performed at the Dublin Chamber Music Union in the Antient Concert Rooms on 20 March 1903 by Esposito and its dedicatee, the English violinist and former professor of violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), John Dunn. It was later orchestrated in 1913 and performed at Woodbrook (the home of the music-loving baronet Sir Stanley Cochrane) by Achille Simonetti and the DOS on 1 June 1913, conducted by the composer. Both rhapsodies were published by Ricordi of Milan in 1909. Further arrangements of Irish melodies for violin appeared in Five Irish Melodies Op.56 (with three included on this disc: ‘The Coulin’, ‘Silent, O Moyle’ and ‘When through life’) and Two Irish Airs Op.57 (of which the second, ‘The silver tip’, is featured here). Both collections appeared in 1903, the former published in Dublin, the latter in London. Dedicated to Esposito’s most famous protégé, Hamilton Harty, the Violin Sonata No.3 in A Op.67 was composed in 1913. It was given its first performance at the Royal Dublin Society on 11 January 1915 by Simonetti and Esposito and published by C.E. Music Publishers, the local publishing company Eposito had established with Cochrane in Dublin in 1915. Even more expansive than his previous two contributions to the genre, the work reflects the greater harmonic and structural experimentation of Esposito’s later piano works. The first movement also juxtaposes a much greater number of divergent moods, the most intriguing of which – an impressionistic episode on the cusp of tonality – lies at the heart of the development. The Scherzo (more in the manner of a solemn minuet) and slow movement, a simple rondo, with a deeply affecting melody, are similarly replete with harmonic surprises, while the last movement, buoyant and generous in mood, is a beautifully crafted, unconventional sonata structure. 훿 Jeremy Dibble
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Carmelo Andriani
Vincenzo Maltempo
‘I can state that Carmelo Andriani is an extraordinarily talented violinist and a brilliant musician. I have heard his latest recordings for solo violin; they are of a unique intensity.’ Lior Shambadal
Considered ‘one of the most interesting pianists of his generation’ (La Stampa), Vincenzo Maltempo was born in 1985 and completed his musical studies with Salvatore Orlando, a former pupil of the pianist Sergio Fiorentino. He graduated with highest honours from the ‘Santa Cecilia’ Conservatoire in Rome, thereafter taking courses with Riccardo Risaliti at the International Piano Academy ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola. In 2006 he won the prestigious Premio Venezia piano competition, held at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and received great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Following this success, Maltempo gave a series of concerts in Europe, Asia and the USA. He has also played at some of the most important music festivals and theatres in his native Italy. His first CD, a collection of piano music by Liszt, was recorded for the Austrian label Gramola in 2008. Following the success of this release, in 2012 he began a collaboration with the British record label PianoClassics; his first release, a 3-CD collection of music by the French Romantic composer Charles-Valentin Alkan, was critically acclaimed, achieving five-star reviews in Diapason, Gramophone and The Guardian. Along with pianist Emanuele Delucchi, Maltempo has also recorded José Vianna da Motta’s complete piano transcriptions of Alkan’s music, arranged for one and two pianos, on the Toccata label. Maltempo is considered one of the most accomplished interpreters of Alkan’s music. In November 2013 he performed Alkan’s 12 Études Op.39 in Japan, making him one of very few pianists to have played the complete set in a single recital. Maltempo’s debut in the Miami Piano Festival in 2014 was acclaimed by both audiences and critics alike, leading to an invitation to perform at the festival again. Maltempo is a co-founder and piano teacher at the Imola Piano Academy’s ‘Talent Development – Eindhoven’ in The Netherlands. www.vincenzomaltempo.com
Carmelo Andriani was born in Bari in 1968, into a family of musicians. While still very young he was awarded his diploma, and he went on to study under Igor Oistrakh and Victor Pikaizen in the Soviet Union, receiving a diploma of merit. After obtaining further diplomas in Violin and Chamber Music Studies at the ‘Santa Cecilia’ Conservatoire in Rome, where his tutors included Felix Ayo and Riccardo Brengola, he was awarded a scholarship to the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, where he completed an advanced course in violin studies under Uto Ughi. Andriani has performed in Europe, the USA, Canada, Mexico, China and Korea as a soloist, in a duo or as part of a chamber ensemble, where his performances have been acclaimed by both public and critics. He is currently first violin of the Meridies String Quartet. He has recorded for the Italian broadcaster Rai and for the Discoteca di Stato (Italian State Recording Archives). He made the premiere recordings of works by Italian composers Virgilio Mortari and Raffaele Gervasio for Phoenix Classics and Tactus. His recording of violin and piano sonatas for the Irish label FarWestern, written specially for him by the Irish composer Tom Cullivan, earned the following review: ‘… the Gaelic spirit of Cullivan’s music has found in Andriani a sincere and passionate voice; he conjures a wealth of fascinating sounds from his violin with a masterful technique and is powerfully expressive…’. His latest recording for Stradivarius, Recital, is a personal selection of some of the most symbolic compositions written for solo violin. Andriani was acclaimed by audiences and critics alike for his most recent concert in Berlin, where he performed as a soloist at the Philharmonie with the Berliner Symphoniker under Lior Shambadal. www.carmeloandriani.it
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Also available on Brilliant Classics
Special thanks to Professor Rosangela Barone Dedicated to Gabriella
Recording: 16–17 June 2014, Music Suite, Sammichele di Bari, Italy Sound engineer: Eustacchio Montemurro Mastering: Audionova, Studio 4, Matera, Italy Violins: Andrea Guarnieri, Cremona, 1675 (CD1: 1–3; CD2: 1–7); ‘Sofia’, made by Angelo Andrulli, Matera (Italy), 2009 (CD1: 4–8; CD2: 8) Piano: Yamaha C5 · Piano tuner: Massimo De Padova Artists’ photo: 훿 XXXXX & 훿 2015 Brilliant Classics
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Bloch: Music for violin and piano 95015
Saint-Saëns: Violin Sonatas 94848
Brahms: Violin Sonatas 94824
Rubinstein: Complete Violin Sonatas 94605 3CD
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