Da Vinci Classics
Physical and Digital Release: 16 March 2018
Paolo Vergari presents Liszt's Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, exploring the cycle's connections between poetry, spiritual reflection and the expressive scale of the piano.
15.14€
Liszt · Harmonies poétiques et religieuses · 11 tracks
Paolo Vergari performs the complete ten-piece cycle, followed by À la Chapelle Sixtine, S. 461/1. Two CDs; timings follow Spotify and Apple Music (98:54).
Paolo Vergari was born in Falerone, in the province of Fermo, Italy, in 1964. He studied piano and composition at the “L. D’Annunzio” Conservatory in Pescara with Giovanna De Fanti, and subsequently continued his studies with M. Della Chiesa D’Isasca, E. Hubert, A. Ciccolini, T. Nikolajewa, E. Murano and A. Hintchev.
He has given concerts as a soloist and chamber musician at major concert halls and for international organisations, including Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Sala Nervi in Vatican City, Teatro Regio in Parma, the Reggia di Caserta, Teatro Regio in Turin, Teatro Verdi in Salerno, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome. Outside Italy, he has performed at the United Nations Auditorium in New York, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the Dante Alighieri Cultural Centre in Moscow, the Klementinum and B. Martinů Hall in Prague, Salle Cortot and IRCAM in Paris, the Manoel Theatre in Malta and the A. Williams Concert Hall in Buenos Aires.
His performances have been broadcast by RAI, TMC, Radio France, RSI, Radio Maltese, Blu Sat 2000 and ORF. He has toured Asia regularly since 2004, particularly China, performing in major concert halls in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shenyang. He has appeared as a soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Salta, the Windkraft Orchestra, the Orchestra of Radio Sofia, the Lublin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bacău Philharmonic Orchestra in Romania, the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra, the Fiati di Parma wind orchestra, the Brno Philharmonic and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra. Conductors with whom he has worked include Giorgio Bernasconi, Mirjam Schmidt, Marco Della Chiesa D’Isasca, Petr Altrichter, Kaspar de Roo, Michele Santorsola and Jorge Lhez.
His interest in chamber music has led to collaborations with the Szymanowski Quartet, violinist Nicolas Chumachenco and the Oggimusica Ensemble of Lugano. He was also a founding member of the ADM Ensemble of Modena. He has participated in international festivals including the Montpellier–Radio France Festival, the Stresa Festival, Musica Riva in Riva del Garda, Giardino della Musica in Milan, BadiaMusica in Bolzano and the Festival Pontino in Latina. He founded BadiaMusica in 2000 and served as its artistic director, presenting orchestral and chamber music with distinguished performers. He has taught masterclasses at Kunming University in Yunnan, China, the “G. Enescu” University in Iași, Romania, and the Magnificat School of Music in Jerusalem, where musicians from Jewish and Arab communities share their musical experience.
His numerous recordings include the complete piano concertos of Gian Francesco Malipiero, performed in 2005 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Iași and released in 2007. In 2006 he recorded My Love to China, which includes traditional Chinese music. In 2003 he made the first complete recording of Gino Tagliapietra’s forty Studi di perfezionamento, issued as a double CD and praised by critics. He has recorded Enrique Granados’s Goyescas for Clarius Audi and works by Olivier Messiaen, Lino Liviabella and Claudio Rastelli for Phoenix and Altrisuoni.
In 2010 he composed the music for Fernando Muraca’s film Duns Scoto.
His interest in improvisation developed through workshops with François Rossé. He has given improvised performances for solo piano and with other musicians, including tamburello virtuoso Carlo Rizzo, singer Elisa Tonelli and percussionist Massimiliano Dragoni, with whom he recorded Taka’s Question in 2010. Following a series of concerts with Ladin poet Roberta Dapunt, he recorded Perdono in 2001, with improvisations inspired by her poetry. He has taught piano at the “G. Braga” Conservatory in Teramo, “Nicola Sala” in Benevento, “Niccolò Piccinni” in Bari and “Domenico Cimarosa” in Avellino.
Franz Liszt: (b Raiding, (Doborján), 22 Oct 1811; d Bayreuth, 31 July 1886). Hungarian composer, pianist and teacher. He was one of the leaders of the Romantic movement in music. In his compositions he developed new methods, both imaginative and technical, which left their mark upon his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some 20th-century ideas and procedures; he also evolved the method of ‘transformation of themes’ as part of his revolution in form, made radical experiments in harmony and invented the symphonic poem for orchestra. As the greatest piano virtuoso of his time, he used his sensational technique and captivating concert personality not only for personal effect but to spread, through his transcriptions, knowledge of other composers’ music. As a conductor and teacher, especially at Weimar, he made himself the most influential figure of the New German School dedicated to progress in music. His unremitting championship of Wagner and Berlioz helped these composers achieve a wider European fame. Equally important was his unrivalled commitment to preserving and promoting the best of the past, including Bach, Handel, Schubert, Weber and above all Beethoven; his performances of such works as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Hammerklavier Sonata created new audiences for music hitherto regarded as incomprehensible. The seeming contradictions in his personal life – a strong religious impulse mingled with a love of worldly sensation – were resolved by him with difficulty. Yet the vast amount of new biographical information makes the unthinking view of him as ‘half gypsy, half priest’ impossible to sustain. He contained in his character more of the ideals and aspirations of the 19th century than any other major musician.
Profile from The New Grove dictionary of Music and Musicians
Album Notes By Edmondo Filippini Franz Liszt was undoubtedly one of the most important and influential composers of the nineteenth century. His innovations, from piano technique to composition, were extraordinary. Even today, when his reputation as a pianist is widely acknowledged, it can be difficult to appreciate how profoundly he changed the modern understanding of composing and making music. His personal life, especially in his early years, reflected the Romantic ideals of his age, making him seem as much the hero of a novel as a celebrated musician. His relationships…
By Edmondo Filippini
Franz Liszt was undoubtedly one of the most important and influential composers of the nineteenth century. His innovations, from piano technique to composition, were extraordinary. Even today, when his reputation as a pianist is widely acknowledged, it can be difficult to appreciate how profoundly he changed the modern understanding of composing and making music.
His personal life, especially in his early years, reflected the Romantic ideals of his age, making him seem as much the hero of a novel as a celebrated musician. His relationships with married women, his liaison with the dancer Lola Montez, the countless admirers who regarded him as a musical deity, and his lasting bond with Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein might hardly suggest a spiritual temperament. Yet Liszt had cultivated a religious vocation since his teenage years in Paris. He entered the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1857, received the tonsure in 1865, and took the four minor orders of porter, lector, exorcist and acolyte. He subsequently became known as the Abbé Liszt.
The Harmonies poétiques et religieuses can be understood as part of this restless search for something the composer could not find in earthly love. In many pages of the collection, he transforms the idea of love into a personal and original conception. In Weimar, Liszt brought together ten pieces of religious inspiration, drawing on works composed between 1845 and 1851 as well as earlier material. The title recalls his 1834 composition Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, which became Pensée des morts in its revised form. Both the early piece and the later collection were inspired by the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine, whose writings prompted fourteen different compositions by Liszt.
The transformation of the earlier material into the final collection offers an example of spiritual development: from a young man first discovering life’s pleasures to an experienced artist with a more mature understanding of his own sensuality.
Sensuality may indeed be one of the keys to the religious spirit of these works from Liszt’s middle years. They stand between the youthful search for spiritual meaning and the Franciscan austerity of his later life in Rome. A work such as Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude inevitably calls to mind another image of intense sensuality, Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. In both masterpieces, the boundary between bodily experience and spiritual ecstasy seems almost tangible.
The idea of assembling a spiritually oriented collection can be traced back to 1840; a first complete version, containing earlier forms of the pieces, followed in 1847. The final collection was published by Kistner in 1853, with a dedication to Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein. It is significant that the book ends with Cantique d’amour, a work connected with their relationship.
The collection embraces two broad approaches: the relative simplicity of pieces derived from choral originals, and expansive Romantic tone poems of great expressive power. It includes two of Liszt’s most important works, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude and Funérailles, alongside the masterpieces Pensée des morts and Cantique d’amour. Four pieces derive from choral music: Ave Maria, Pater noster and Hymne de l’enfant à son réveil, composed in the 1840s, and a Miserere mistakenly attributed by Liszt to Palestrina. Invocation and Andante lagrimoso were neglected for many years. Lamartine’s poetry underlies much of the cycle, although Funérailles and Cantique d’amour are not directly related to his poems.
Long after retiring from public performance, Liszt continued to enjoy playing these pieces for friends. They remained among the works he cherished to the end of his life.
The final composition on this double album is À la Chapelle Sixtine. Inspired by two very different motets, it is an unusual work: Liszt begins with the famous Miserere mei, Deus by Gregorio Allegri (1582–1652), then reaches Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, K. 618, through a series of modulations. Composed in 1791, the latter was Mozart’s final completed sacred choral work. Allegri’s Miserere was written during the papacy of Urban VIII; its copying and publication were restricted, although manuscript copies circulated. While the original is famous for its antiphonal choral writing, Liszt concentrates initially on its harmonies, using them to develop a passacaglia that prepares the revelation of Mozart’s music.
Paolo Vergari, piano · Yamaha CFX.
Recorded in Rome, April 2017.
Recording, mixing and mastering: Massimo Marchese, Marchese Mobile Studio.
Music advisor: Pasquale Punzo.
Album notes: Edmondo Filippini.
Production, design and art direction: OMK–Da Vinci.
Printed with the support of S.P.L.M., L’aulos di Marzia and EboliMusica.
Paolo Vergari dedicates this recording to the memory of his dear Giacomo Nicolai.
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Broadcasts, conversations and listening features dedicated to this recording.
Alia Musica · Armonie in Dialogo
Episode 23: Paolo Vergari discusses the piano, spirituality and poetry in Romantic music. The programme introduces this recording and includes Liszt’s Funérailles.
Listen to the episode ↗ - Alia Musica · Armonie in DialogoRai Radio 3 · Primo Movimento
Selected for the programme’s disc review segment on this date.
