GIOACHINO ROSSINI
“Nacqui all’affanno… Non più mesta” from La Cenerentola
NICCOLÒ PAGANINI
Introduction and variations in D major «Non più mesta»
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
«Di tanti palpiti» from Tancredi
MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO
Second Movement (Lento, grave and sad) from Concerto No. 3
Mezzosoprano
Elmina Hasan
Violin
Giuseppe Gibboni
(56th Paganini Prize winner)
Piano
Valentina Messa
Speakers: Ferruccio De Bortoli (President Corriere della Sera Foundation),
Enrico Girardi (Music Critic Corriere della Sera), Claudio Orazi (Superintendent Opera Carlo Felice Genova), Giuseppe Gerbino (Columbia University), Francesco Zimei (University of Trento), Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Castelnuovo-Tedesco Archive).
A Bridge of Music is an international cultural project conceived by Superintendent Claudio Orazi in 2016 with the aim of enhancing music as a driver of cultural diplomacy between Italy and the United States. The year 2025 marks a key moment, as it marks the bicentennial of the first performance of an Italian opera in the United States (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Park Theatre in New York, November 1825).
The meeting-concert at the Corriere della Sera Foundation opens the bicentennial celebrations, and the musical program features music by Gioachino Rossini-whose Barbiere di Siviglia was the first Italian opera performed in the United States-Niccolò Paganini, one of the greatest exponents of Genoese musical culture in the world, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a Florentine composer who emigrated to the United States because of racial laws and a unique voice in the Italian panorama of the 20th century.
The program opens with “Nacqui all’affanno… Non più mesta” from La Cenerentola, or La bontà in trionfo, a dramma giocoso composed by Rossini in 1817 to a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti from Perrault’s fable. “Nacqui all’affanno…” is final rondo by the protagonist, who has ascended to the throne next to the Prince and, full of joy, is ready to forgive her stepfather Don Magnifico and stepsisters. The vocality of the protagonist is one of the most fascinating aspects of the opera, although it is a dramma giocoso Rossini in fact created for her a vocal line of almost serious, ornate and virtuosic inspiration, to convey in music the contrast between the materialism of the other characters and the purity of Angelica (the name given here to Cinderella to emphasize her virtue), almost the very personification of Goodness.
From the very same theme Paganini made a cycle of Variations for violin and piano or orchestra between 1817 and 1819. Several variations on existing themes, and often taken from the operatic repertoire, recur in Paganini’s catalog. The “Non più mesta” Variations were the first made on a Rossini theme; Paganini would later compose others inspired by Moses and Tancredi, finding a special affinity between the brilliance of Rossini’s vocal writing and the characteristic virtuosity of his own violin writing. Here the exposition of the theme is anticipated by an introduction, followed by four variations in which the composer deploys various violin techniques in a virtuosic crescendo to a lively finale.
This is followed by the cavatina “Di tanti palpiti,” one of the most famous pieces from the heroic melodrama Tancredi, composed by Rossini in 1813 to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi from Voltaire’s tragedy. Tancredi was the composer’s first success in the opera seria genre; it was especially appreciated for its intense melodicism. In Act I, the protagonist – played by an alto – returns to Syracuse from exile with the hope of seeing his beloved Amenaide again, to whom he ideally addresses himself in “Di tanti palpiti.” Tancredi’s vocality is delineated through writing inspired by late 18th-century opera seria of great expressiveness and refined nuance. Although from the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1950s Tancredi was scarcely performed, the protagonist’s cavatina always enjoyed considerable success.
In closing, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto No. 3. Deeply linked to the story of his emigration to the United States, the Third Concerto was the composer’s first work once he arrived in New York in 1939 to escape racial laws. Russian violinist naturalized U.S. Jascha Heifetz was among the first to help Castelnuovo-Tedesco in the States; the Concerto is dedicated to him. Of the three movements – Drammatico, Lento, grave e triste, Molto moderato – the second is performed on this occasion. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s catalog includes several Concertos for solo instrument and orchestra and many chamber music titles. The Concert n. 3 for violin and piano brings together the characters of both genres with an expressive and very personal writing; the composer’s main stylistic traits can be found there, between references to the late 19th/early 20th century Italian and popular traditions, and innovative harmonic research. In his own memoirs, commenting on Concerto No. 3, Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote, “In this composition I think I have caught the pain I felt in leaving my old home, and something of the hope for my life in the new.”
Ludovica Gelpi