Vivaldi: La costanza trionfante degl'amori e de gl’odii
Same composer
Da Vinci Classics
Physical and Digital Release: 8 September 2017
Paolo Porto and Ileana Frontini explore the piano duet as a meeting place for theatre, orchestral colour and dance, with arrangements of music by Johann Strauss II, Kurt Weill and Darius Milhaud.
13.67€
The Three Penny Piano · 16 tracks
All arrangements by Paolo Porto. Timings refer to the digital edition; services may round tracks differently.
Duo Porto-Frontini was formed in 2007 by Ileana Frontini and Paolo Porto, both active as soloists and chamber musicians, for a fundraising concert at the oncology hospital in Carrara. Alongside the traditional piano-duet repertoire, they explore orchestral transcriptions in the nineteenth-century tradition. Their programmes range from the Baroque to the twentieth century, combining established four-hand works, new arrangements and music commissioned from contemporary composers.
The duo won competitions including Piove di Sacco, Città di Montalto and Città di Genova. They attended masterclasses with Jürgen Margulis and András Schiff and, in the summers of 2010 and 2011, studied with Joseph Paratore at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg. Invited to perform in the academy’s concert programme, they played Porto’s original composition Cherchez la femme for two pianos.
Their appearances in Italy have included concerts in Imperia, Carrara, Padua, Rome, Milan and Venice. They have performed for Piano City, Expo Milano, the Festival delle Cinque Giornate in Milan, the Festival di Bellagio e del Lago di Como, the Festival delle Nazioni in Rome, Amici della Musica di Imperia, Il Faro di Tevennac in Benevento, Note Romantiche in Verbania and the Associazione Rachmaninoff in Salerno.
Their recordings include releases for Archivi del Novecento and Music from a Parallel World for MAP, featuring contemporary works written for them. They also recorded Friedrich Kuhlau’s violin sonatas and music for piano four hands for Brilliant Classics. On The Three Penny Piano for Da Vinci Classics, they perform Paolo Porto’s arrangements of music by Johann Strauss, Kurt Weill, Darius Milhaud and Antonio Vivaldi.
Antonio Vivaldi: (b Venice, 4 March 1678; d Vienna, 27/8 July 1741). Italian composer. The most original and influential Italian composer of his generation, he laid the foundations for the mature Baroque concerto. His contributions to musical style, violin technique and the practice of orchestration were substantial, and he was a pioneer of orchestral programme music.
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Darius Milhaud: (b Marseilles, 4 Sept 1892; d Geneva, 22 June 1974). French composer. He was associated with the avant garde of the 1920s, whose abundant production reflects all musical genres. A pioneer in the use of percussion, polytonality, jazz and aleatory techniques, his music allies lyricism with often complex harmonies. Though his sources of inspiration were many and varied, his music has compelling stylistic unity.
Johann Strauss II (Vienna, 25 October 1825 – Vienna, 3 June 1899) was an Austrian composer, violinist and conductor, celebrated as the “Waltz King”. The son of Johann Strauss I, he developed an international career with his orchestra and helped make Viennese dance music familiar far beyond Austria. His waltzes, polkas and marches unite memorable melody with a finely developed sense of rhythm and orchestral colour.
His best-known works include The Blue Danube and the Emperor Waltz. He also became a leading figure in Viennese operetta, notably with Die Fledermaus (1874) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885). The overture to Die Fledermaus, heard here in an arrangement for piano four hands, draws together the operetta’s sparkling dance rhythms and lyrical melodies. Strauss’s music remains central to concert life and to Vienna’s musical identity.
Kurt Weill: (b Dessau, 2 March 1900; d New York, 3 April 1950). German composer, American citizen from 1943. He was one of the outstanding composers in the generation that came to maturity after World War I, and a key figure in the development of modern forms of musical theatre. His successful and innovatory work for Broadway during the 1940s was a development in more popular terms of the exploratory stage works that had made him the foremost avant-garde theatre composer of the Weimar Republic.
ALBUM NOTES by Paolo Porto Frivolous, elegant, enjoyable: in the popular imagination, piano four hands is often associated with dance music, usually played by young students with their teacher. That is certainly one aspect of the repertoire, but it also includes transcriptions of symphonic movements and chamber works, and arrangements of celebrated orchestral music. Particularly in the nineteenth century, these offered a practical way of hearing symphonic music wherever a piano was available. The keyboard’s range, shared between four hands, can reproduce the various sections of an orchestra or the…
Frivolous, elegant, enjoyable: in the popular imagination, piano four hands is often associated with dance music, usually played by young students with their teacher. That is certainly one aspect of the repertoire, but it also includes transcriptions of symphonic movements and chamber works, and arrangements of celebrated orchestral music. Particularly in the nineteenth century, these offered a practical way of hearing symphonic music wherever a piano was available. The keyboard’s range, shared between four hands, can reproduce the various sections of an orchestra or the intricate musical dialogue of a quartet.
This recording sets out to explore and extend that tradition: transcribing orchestral pieces such as the overture to Die Fledermaus; adapting works originally written for two pianos, such as Scaramouche; creating suites from stage works such as Die Dreigroschenoper; and looking further back in time, transforming Vivaldi’s aria “Vedrò con mio diletto” from Il Giustino into something entirely different.
The celebrated overture to Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus is one of the composer’s most successful works. It brings together some of the operetta’s most memorable and captivating melodies, in an exhilarating score that alternates waltz rhythms with lyrical passages. The piano transcription captures its spirit with great fidelity. Although it cannot offer the full range of orchestral colours, piano four hands has a natural capacity for rubato and rhythmic flexibility with which to do justice to this masterpiece.
A masterpiece born of the meeting of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera alternates spoken scenes and musical numbers, with an aesthetic closely related to cabaret and jazz. Its songs have an extraordinarily evocative quality and have become reference points across different musical genres. “Mack the Knife”, for example, became a famous jazz standard, performed by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, among many others. Here, transcription comes close to translation: it seeks to bring the world of song and early twentieth-century cabaret to life again at the piano.
Originally composed for two pianos in 1937, Scaramouche subsequently appeared in a variety of versions, including arrangements for saxophone and orchestra, clarinet and orchestra, and saxophone quartet. Its origins are unusual: Milhaud drew its movements from earlier works. The first and third derive from his incidental music for Molière’s Le Médecin volant, performed at the Théâtre Scaramouche, which gave the suite its title; the second draws on his music for Bolivar. Milhaud regarded this playful, ironic divertissement with reservations and was initially reluctant to publish it, concerned that it might overshadow his more substantial compositions. History proved otherwise: its persistent rhythms, wit and lyrical beauty made Scaramouche a classic of the piano-duo repertoire.
The aria “Vedrò con mio diletto” from Vivaldi’s Il Giustino, written in 1724, was intended for a castrato, with the distinctive sound, breath control and timbre of that voice. Written during Vivaldi’s maturity, it displays great mastery in its treatment of the voice and its musical ideas. Its ABA structure includes a da capo return of the opening section, traditionally enriched with ornaments and variations. Once again, the piano transcription differs considerably from the original conception, while carefully preserving the work’s structure. It creates something new, full of charm and depth. Despite the distance between the two media, the piano’s softer sonorities can convey the melodic nuances, phrasing and harmonic construction of this beautiful composition.
Original text: Paolo Porto. Original English translation: Nicolò Ciuffi; revised for this page.
Duo Porto-Frontini: Ileana Frontini and Paolo Porto, piano four hands. All arrangements by Paolo Porto.
Recorded in March and April 2017 by Mirco Mencacci, Samworld.
Production, design and art direction: OMK–Da Vinci. Printed with the support of S.P.L.M.
℗ & © OMK–Da Vinci Classics. DDD. Manufactured in Japan.
This release is dedicated to Nicolò. Special thanks to Sara Navalesi and Nicolò Ciuffi.
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