Da Vinci Classics
Trio Tiberini – Malerba – Corrado
Irene Tiberini, clarinets · Vito Francesco Malerba, cello · Annie Corrado, piano
13.67€
Trio: original trios and solos · 24 tracks
Repertoire and instrumentation follow the original booklet. Durations verified on Spotify and Apple Music; Amazon Music rounds track 21 to 2:50.
The Trio Tiberini–Malerba–Corrado brings together clarinettist Irene Tiberini, cellist Vito Francesco Malerba and pianist Annie Corrado.
The ensemble was formed to continue exploring these instruments, whose nature and origins are firmly rooted in the classical tradition, and to enrich their repertoire through the many influences of twentieth- and twenty-first-century music. The trio made its debut in May 2016 in Rome’s “Percorsi Contemporanei” series, at an event promoted by the Dodekachordon Cultural Association in collaboration with the Consorzio Liberi Musicisti (CLM), performing works by contemporary composers.
Irene Tiberini is a clarinettist. She graduated at a very young age with the highest marks from the G. Braga Music Institute in Teramo, where she studied with Romeo Petraccia.
In 2001 she attended the Gessopalena summer music courses with Massimo Ricci, Jean-Luc and Giovanni Votano, Mario Tiberini, Guy Gerard, Gaston Boquillon, Richard Decamps and Alessandro Travaglini. Her further training included masterclasses organised by Belgium’s Musique Militaire with Ronald Van Spaendonk in Leuven, and at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with Béla Kovács and H. Swimberghe. She also attended a masterclass with Paul Meyer, organised in collaboration with Buffet at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and studied with Nicolas Baleyrou at the Ghent Conservatory.
She won the Dexia Classic International Music Competition in the chamber music category with the Irgacani clarinet quartet, and the TIM International Music Competition in the chamber music category with the Les Claribolles clarinet quartet. In 2010 she won first prize in the competition for orchestral posts at the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale in Spoleto.
Vito Francesco Malerba is a cellist, born in Rome in 1995. He began studying the cello at the age of six with Andrea Fossà at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, graduating at twelve with the highest marks and an honourable mention. A prizewinner in several national and international competitions, he won the Rovere d’Oro International Competition in 2004.
In 2008 Uto Ughi invited him to participate as a soloist in his youth orchestra. In February 2010 he took part in the Società Dante Alighieri’s concert “Nati per le note”, performing music by Francesco Cilea, Max Reger and Claude Debussy. In June 2011 he completed his advanced studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Francesco Strano and Giovanni Sollima, with the highest marks.
Annie Corrado is a pianist. She graduated in 2005 from the S. Pietro a Majella Conservatory in Naples, where she studied with Mirella Vinciguerra. In 2008 she won prizes in national and international competitions. She continued her studies with teachers including Isabella Lo Porto, Riccardo Risaliti, Orazio Maione and Marco Grisanti.
In July 2013 she collaborated with composer Francesco Di Giuseppe on the recording of his album Qualcosa a che fare con la domenica, produced by VideoRadio/RAI Trade. Since 2013 her work has focused on contemporary music, with appearances at festivals, events and concerts in Italy and abroad, including Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom, both as a soloist and chamber musician.
In 2016 she became a founding member of the Consorzio Liberi Musicisti, participating in the “Percorsi Contemporanei” festival in Rome and performing numerous premieres. In April 2017 she formed Trio Adamas, for clarinet, cello and piano, which appeared in several concerts, including Kiev Contemporary Music Days 2017.
Alberto Cara was born in Tivoli in 1975. He completed his piano studies with Eugenio Tani, Riccardo Risaliti and Boris Petrushansky, and studied composition with Federico Biscione, Alessandro Cusatelli, Marco Tutino and Luis Bacalov. He has composed symphonic, chamber and operatic works. In 2007, at Marco Tutino’s invitation, he wrote Il colore di Cenerentola, a metropolitan fairy tale in four scenes. The opera was co-produced by Turin’s Teatro Regio and Bologna’s Teatro Comunale, and premiered at the Piccolo Regio Laboratorio in Turin and L’Altrocomunale in Bologna during the 2007–2008 season. In 2009 he composed Gli occhi colore del vino, a monologue for actor and seven instruments, setting his own libretto freely adapted from Book X of Homer’s Odyssey. It was first performed by the I Pomeriggi Musicali ensemble in Milan. His chamber and symphonic works have been performed in Italy and abroad by I Pomeriggi Musicali, the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo and the Teatro dell’Opera Giocosa in Savona, and at the Brinkhall Summer Festival in Turku, Finland; the Gaulitanus Festival in Gozo, Malta; the Società dei Concerti G. Barattelli in L’Aquila; Rive Gauche in Turin; Rebus – Occhio al nuovo in Milan; and the International Saxophone Stage in Fermo.
An active arranger and orchestrator, he has re-orchestrated and adapted well-known operas for AsLiCo and the Teatro Sociale di Como to meet the requirements of the theatre and other regional venues. These projects include Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in 2009, with a reduction of the original score and a metrical revision of the libretto; Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a reduced version; Verdi’s Nabucco, co-produced in 2010 by the Teatro Sociale di Como and Teatro Regio di Torino; and Verdi’s Aida.
In 2013, Casa Musicale Sonzogno commissioned him to revise and re-orchestrate Francesco d’Avalos’s musical drama Maria di Venosa for the 40th anniversary of the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca. In 2018, Da Vinci Classics released his album Symphonic Works, performed by I Pomeriggi Musicali.
Federico Biscione’s music seeks to communicate with audiences while exploring new possibilities. His freely tonal musical language draws equally on contemporary ideas and tradition.
Born in Tivoli in 1965, he earned diplomas in piano, composition and orchestral conducting at the Conservatorio A. Casella in L’Aquila. From 2001 to 2005 he composed music for the Teatro Regio in Turin and the Parco della Musica in Rome. His collaborations have included Milan’s I Pomeriggi Musicali orchestra, for which he wrote Dalla soffitta, winner of first prize in the 2005 Mozart Today national competition, and the Milano Classica chamber orchestra. He has also transcribed and adapted music by other composers, including a version of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for seven instruments, performed at the Teatro Regio in 2006, and an arrangement of Dvořák’s Four Popular Songs, Op. 73, for string orchestra, prepared for I Pomeriggi Musicali in 2005.
His one-act ballet Il Pifferaio Magico was performed at the Teatro Regio and released by Da Vinci Classics in 2018.
Between 2005 and 2007, Biscione lived in Leipzig. Works written during this period include Verkündigung for soprano and trio, performed in the Thomaskirche, and Mozart. Eine Biographie and Windmühlen, commissioned by the Robert Schumann-Philharmonie in Chemnitz for the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.
The German public broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) devoted an hour-long programme to his music, including interviews and excerpts from his works. During the same period he attended composition classes for a year at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. At the end of 2009 he moved to Milan and took up a composition teaching post at the Conservatorio Niccolò Piccinni in Bari.
Paolo Coggiola was born in Milan in 1967. He studied with Bruno Bettinelli, Franco Donatoni and Paolo Vaglieri, graduating in composition, choral music and choral conducting. He also holds a degree in law.
He won the 2 Agosto International Composition Competition in Bologna. His works have been performed by the Arena di Verona Orchestra, I Pomeriggi Musicali, the Emilia Romagna Symphony Orchestra Arturo Toscanini, the European Symphony Orchestra and Sentieri Selvaggi, and at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano, Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York.
He wrote monographs on Franz Schubert and Claude Debussy, both published by Skira–Corriere della Sera. Sonzogno also published his book on compositional techniques, The Abacus and the Rose. His extensive catalogue of compositions is published by Casa Musicale Sonzogno and Preludio Edizioni.
He teaches composition at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan.
I am sitting at a table. In front of me is a glass full of water. I can think about it in two ways: A) I can consider the silicon molecules in the glass and the hydrogen and oxygen in the water. My approach is analytical.B) I can wonder what to do with the glass: drink the water, throw it against the wall, pour its contents into a jar that has miraculously appeared beside the table, or turn it in my hands. My approach is practical. Now let us change…
I am sitting at a table. In front of me is a glass full of water. I can think about it in two ways:
A) I can consider the silicon molecules in the glass and the hydrogen and oxygen in the water. My approach is analytical.
B) I can wonder what to do with the glass: drink the water, throw it against the wall, pour its contents into a jar that has miraculously appeared beside the table, or turn it in my hands. My approach is practical.
Now let us change the terms of the question. I am a composer, confronted with something that already exists and takes shape through objects: musical language. What can I do?
A) I can dig down to the elements, the atoms of this language: hydrogen and silicon. I alter their nature and combine the molecules according to my own will, trying in this way to give substance to my idea of authorship. I create new objects, assign functions to them and connect them to one another.
B) The objects of this language—the glass and the water—are already good enough, and I use them as I please, combining or breaking them. I preserve or alter their customary relationships according to my needs and intentions.
The composers represented on this CD use the glass and do things with the water. They believe that an author need not necessarily impose his will on the elements of a language to affirm his individuality. They regard language as a given, established by convention, and work with its objects, combining them as originally as possible in accordance with their individual personalities. They drink the water, break the glass, play it, fill it with earth, or use it to water a flowerpot that has miraculously appeared at their side.
The memory of twentieth-century classicism seems to underpin Federico Biscione’s music, although it never settles into a neoclassical style. Confidence in continuity—not to be confused with nostalgia—becomes a fluid narrative, conveying a distinctly Italian sense of melodic beauty and clarity of presentation. Yet this is a classicism marked by tensions rather than an image of Apollonian beauty.
Alberto Cara’s style welcomes encounters between different musical idioms, but clearly does not seek to reduce everything to mere quotation. Irony is intrinsic to his music, which remains deliberately expressive and open to a dreamlike, paradoxical epic of everyday life.
If Biscione and Cara may be regarded as neo-humanist composers, Paolo Coggiola’s almost neo-pagan conception centres on an uneasy, painful condition that finds shelter only in the redemptive dimension of nature. His naturalism is far removed from detached musical studies of nature, such as those associated with the French tradition. The depths of the abyss and the force of the winds form a striking screen onto which the turbulent feelings of a contemporary self are projected.
Complete original booklet note; English revised for clarity.
Irene Tiberini, clarinets · Vito Francesco Malerba, cello · Annie Corrado, piano
Tracks 1–4, 8–10 and 22–24: recorded on 27–28 July 2016 at Ciampi Luxury Gallery, Rome. Sound engineer: Francesco Passarelli.
Tracks 5–7: recorded on 15 October 2016 at Millenium Audio Recording, Rome. Sound engineer: Fabio Ferri.
Tracks 11–21: recorded on 28 October 2016 at Third Ear Lab, Tivoli (Rome). Sound engineer: Francesco Passarelli.
Editing, mixing and mastering: Fabio Ferri, Millenium Audio Recording.
Production, design and art direction: OMK-Da Vinci.
Printed with the support of S.P.L.M.
Sound recording and artwork copyright: OMK-Da Vinci. ℗ & © OMK-Da Vinci Classics. DDD. Manufactured in Japan.
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Margutte
“l’attacco del Preludio vale l’acquisto del CD”
An enthusiastic assessment of the compositions and the trio’s playing, with particular praise for Biscione’s Preludio, notturno e finale. The full review also notes reservations about the recorded sound of the trio pieces.
Read the review ↗ — Margutte
