SERGIO CALLIGARIS
Symphonic and piano music.
[Agorà AG 042.1, DDD, Nuova Carisch distribution]

CONCERTO op.29
for piano and orchestra (1992-1993)

1. Moderato e maestoso assai [6'58"]
2. Scherzo e doppio trio (Allegro ben ritmato - Calmo e malinconico) [12'11"]
3. Allegro ostinato [1'01"]
4. Adagio e gavotte, Allegro ostinato [8'24"]
5. Agitato, con fuoco, Tempo I, [2'25"]
6. Cadenza, Coda (Presto) [4'39"]

Piano: Sergio Calligaris
Albanian Radio TV Orchestra
Conductor: Massimo de Bernart
"Live" recording of Vatican Radio
February 23rd, 1994 - Auditorium di Via della Conciliazione in Roma.
World Première and first recording.

SECONDA SUITE di Danze Sinfoniche op.27
for great orchestra (1990)
7. Tempo di Valzer, Tempo di Siciliana [10'44"]
8. Andante maestoso [0'52"]
9. Movimento perpetuo [4'34"]

Albanian Radio TV Orchestra
Conductor: Jetmir Barballushi
Recording February 9th, 1995 - Albanian Broadcasting Company Studios.
World first recording.

SONATA - FANTASIA op.32
for piano (1994)

10. Introduzione (Maestoso) - Allegro moderato ed appassionato -
Lento elegiaco - Tempo di Valzer - Lento elegiaco -
Allegro moderato ed appassionato - Coda (Più mosso) [14'34"]

Piano: Sergio Calligaris
"Live" recording
26 marzo 1995 - Pontificio istituto di Musica Sacra in Roma.

 

Rigour and spontaneity are the most striking aspects of the music of Sergio Calligaris, and in particular of the two great symphonic works, the Concerto Op.29 for pianoforte and orchestra and the Second Suite of Symphonic Dances Op.27 presented here together with the Sonata-fantasy for pianoforte Op.32. This is not a surprise for anyone who knows this author's previous compositions. In fact the figure of the composer-interpreter (the most apt description of Calligaris) calls for just such rigourousness, such persistently logical form, a taste for symmetry and counterpoint, as was instilled in him from early adolescence on by his first teacher, Father Luis Machado. A direct descendant of the Hindemith school, Machado prepared Calligaris, at the age of only sixteen years, for an university professorship in "high" composition. Whereas the spontaneity characteristic of Calligaris was manifest from the moment when the mature pianist, of internationally recognized bravura, was transformed into an author as fortuitously as magic events seem to occur. It was really homage, rather than an apparently didactic intention, which inspired him to compose his truly first work (despite its number 7 in the catalogue), the Pianistic Notebook of Renzo. All his subsequent output is unexpectedly sustained by this authentic pilaster: it preserves and confirms its freshness, even if in turn the profundity, the contents, the dramatic and narrative sense have changed.

The Notebook is from 1978. It emanates, more than technical-interpretive suggestions, a particular type of pianism which finds in Calligaris (and in this he absolutely deserves to be placed over celebrated composer-pianists of the past, who were sometimes mediocre interpreters of their own music) an ideal performer, a sort of depositary of the secret for rendering that page in all of its expressive effectiveness.

Several solutions, as well as motifs of the Notebook, return in an extraordinary way in the Concerto and in the Dances, even though these are compositions conceived as great symphonic frescoes, for an orchestra which he uses not for the colour of the sound in itself, as much as for the discursive function of the contrapuntal line and of the harmonic texture. These are always the consequence and the mark of an insuppressible communicativeness. Great ease, for one thing, results from his always using instruments in their most comfortable registers without ever forcing them. Why, for example, make the flute risk trying to play in the highest register when the piccolo has a lovely and very natural middle-low register? And beauty of timbre is assured by the care taken never to bring the instrumental groups too close together, in order not to "dirty" the impastos: thus there is never experimentation for its own sake, but rather everything is a function of the beautiful sound of the orchestra.

In the Concerto, the first movement, Moderato e maestoso assai, is a huge exposition of all of the themes which will be treated later. It has a solemn, almost rhapsodic character. A secondary idea, from which all the following thematic development will derive, is interpolated into each of the principal themes, in a way which recalls Brahms. The themes are immediately presented by the orchestra, almost as if the author had an urgent need to communicate from the start with the listener and to win his trust, while the pianoforte sustains the harmonic structure with big arpeggios, until the virtuosistic explosion of the cadenza; this is followed by a pining theme of the French horn which anticipates the Adagio, preceded however by a Scherzo and a Double Trio. The first is a highly rhythmic Allegro in which the violonvello, violin and piccolo, kettledrum and glockenspiel, create a counterpoint of great vitality with the pianoforte. It only seems, in the great play of tension and distension, to give the sensation of remaining within the confines of traditional harmony. The second is a calm and melancholy movement and with every breath of the new theme, presented by the pianoforte, the other pairs of instruments, in the style of chamber music, bring back the themes of the first movement.

A less ample but not less complex Allegro ostinato follows, articulated in two parts which enclose the Adagio. In the first the pianoforte finally has the principal theme - extremely percussive, hammering - but supported only by the timpani and double basses. In the extended middle part the French horn is supported by the whole orchestra, but the pianoforte returns with a Gavotte which co-exists with the theme of the Adagio, presented still by all the forces. Before the grand Finale (a sort of abbreviated return of the first movement) there is a connecting episode that stands apart, a big Cadenza for the pianoforte, which brings back the themes of the previous episodes, including the pining one from the Adagio, and leads into the Presto of the Coda, an authentic triumph of rhythm.

In the Second Suite of Symphonic Dances an orchestra of enormous proportions is used in four movements: Tempo di valzer, Tempo di Siciliana, Andante and Movimento perpetuo. After an introduction, dark and mysterious in character, there follow the two parts of the waltz, one passionate and intense, the other light and fleeting, given respectively to the full orchestra and to a smaller ensemble of instruments which alternate in dialectic play as in a baroque concerto grosso. The second movement is an ecstatic melody of archaic character, supported by very tenuous harmony, to which a new theme, given to the flute, is added. And with exciting symmetry the full theme of the waltz returns, enriched in its instrumentation. The third dance, the Andante, begins with an extremely lyrical and expressive theme, subsequently repeated in a crescendo up to fortissimo. And the concluding movement, too, is a crescendo of voices: after an initial pianissimo it becomes ever richer in colours and intensity, while the atmosphere changes from lyrical to exasperated, up to a final explosion. Its persuasive and overwhelming rhythm, without any accelerations, manages to give the impression of ineluctability.

We have the same sensation in the Sonata-Fantasy for pianoforte, but only in the very brief introductory section which anticipates, in a solemn and majestic manner, the first theme. This is a gigantic single movement, articulated into eight sections: a flowing together of themes and rhythms and a changing of colours from the elegiac to the tumultuous, up to the final apotheosis which sums up and exalts everything.

Virgilio Celletti