Dallapiccola: Tartiniana seconda; Due studi; Ciaccona, intermezzo e adagio; Quaderno musicale di Annalibera

COMPOSERS: Dallapiccola
LABELS: Stradivarius Times Future
WORKS: Tartiniana seconda; Due studi; Ciaccona, intermezzo e adagio; Quaderno musicale di Annalibera
PERFORMER: Rodolfo Bonucci (violin), Arturo Bonucci (cello), Bruno Canino (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: STR 33332

It’s good to have Dallapiccola’s two instrumental masterpieces, the Ciaccona, intermezzo e adagio for solo cello, and Quaderno musicale di Annalibera for piano, in largely sympathetic performances. The concluding Adagio of the cello piece, in particular, is a movement of haunting eloquence and simplicity, and Arturo Bonucci plays it with just the right expressive freedom. Bruno Canino’s account of the Quaderno is vastly superior to the version by Lya de Barbariis which I reviewed in August, though there’s an occasional lack of meticulousness about the accentuation and dynamic layering that leads me to suspect quite a mixture of takes has been selected. Much worse than that, an editing blunder has removed four bars from the contrapuntal third movement, making nonsense of its intricate canonic design. The star-rating would be higher were this error to be corrected, perhaps on a future pressing. The two works for violin and piano – the Due studi derived from the score for an aborted film on Piero della Francesca, and the second of Dallapiccola’s lugubrious studies in canonic virtuosity based on music by Tartini – are scrupulously played by Rodolfo Bonucci, though the concluding variation-movement of Tartiniana seconda is too hurried for music that needs a certain grandeur. The sound is a little studio-bound, but perfectly adequate. Misha Donat