Abelardo Albisi: Chamber Music for Winds

Description

Abelardo Ernesto Albisi was an eclectic italian flutist, and composer born near Piacenza. He is known also as inventor of a type of bass flute called Albisifono (or Albisiphone) , that cold be played like a recorder and having the same fingering mechanic of the normal flute. This particular instrument had been used for the first time by himself at Teatro del Popolo in Milan in the piece Melodia dei campi Elisi of Gluck.Then this curious instrument had been used in the orchestral context by Mascagni in his opera Parisina (1913), by Zandonai in his opera Melenis (1912) Francesca da Rimini (1914). More compositions including this instrument were : Der Sonne-Geist of Friedrich Klose and the Adagio of Giovanni Giannetti, composed for Albisifono and string quartet. He also conceived an alto flute in F. In 1882 was admitted at Regia Scuola di Parma where he studied flute with professors Luigi Beccali and Paolo Cristoforetti, graduating in 1890. The following year he was in Brasil together with an opera company coming from Parma, with the conductor Arnaldo Conti. In 1896 he performed in Saint Moritz and was recommended by Toscanini as a player to be nominated at the Turin Orchestra. From 1898 he was principal flutist at La Scala, replacing Antonio Zamperoni. He was a solist in that context. Together his brother Giovanni, concertmeister of the second violins at the same orchestra, he was the leader of a protest against the conductor Cleofonte Campanini, who was then sent away from La Scala Theatre in favour of Arturo Toscanini, who was his close friend. In spite of that in 1918 some anedocts tell us that during a rehearsal he had a strong fight with that well known conductor. As Toscanini approached Albisi to apologize for his bad behaviour, the flutist launched the music stand against him causing a tremendous riot. According what had been told by the other flutist Tassinari Albisi defined Toscanni before the orchestra as a tyrant and insane man. After this tremendous fight Albisi was invited to leave the orchestra and Tassinari took over his position. After that he was appointed as principal flutist by Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. He was active there from 1918 till 1923.Meantime he also taught at the Geneva Conservatory,which agreed upon the orchestra and all players to to that. Not much is known about the activity of Albisi after that swisse experince in Geneva. It is known that he was composing the Operetta Arlecchinata, which remained unfinished because he went blind. He died in Swizerland in 1938. As a composer Albisi wrote in the first two decades of 1900 quite a good number of flute compositions with piano or orchestra and also Etudes (Six Studies published by Venturini) His Trios for flutes have been also performed with his Trio, including his collegues Arrigo Tassinari and Giuseppe Azzano. With the milanese publishing house Fantuzzi the Hymn Primo maggio (for wind band) the mazurka Senza ritornello, the waltz Il sole dell’avvenire, the fox-trot Capriccio, the waltz Così fan tutte, the march Canzone campestre, and mazurka Fiorellino di siepe. Also arrangements from operas of Wagner Lohengrin, Parsifal, Tristan, Tannhaüser. Most of his composition are located at the librarues of the Conservatories of Milan and Venice. The compositions we selected for this recording are a clear example of the florid insight of the mind of Albisi of his original compositions and arrangements. Both two Divertimentos are well structured and have cheerful character and in some cases audacious harmonic situations. They are technically challenging for all instruments, especially for the flute, which was his instrument. The Divertimento n 7 in stile antico (in old style) has been dedicated to his brother Giovanni. The Divertimento n 3 had been dedicated to Nina (we don’t know who she could have been).The Suite miniature n 1 has been chosen from the corpus of four pieces written by Albisi using three flutes.It was dedicated to the Prof Filippo Castellani, flute teacher at the Music School of Ravenna. On the frontpage the composer wrote a curious sentence: Leonardo da Castel Lauro .. Musica, non rumori (music not noise). Albisi did that often in his compositions of chamber music, writing some curious citations. The arrangements of famous compositions such as the Bach Sonata and the small well-known melodies of Schumann and Bizet from Carmen have quite beautiful themes, both melodical and brilliant, very well distributed to the wind instruments. I preferred to use the mellower timbre of the basset horn instead of french horn. One of the two Racconti di Nina (Stories of Nina) here recorded is a curious original composition thought with the flute as a soloist, with its partners having fun with it. This composer wrote a big corpus of fifteen Divertimenti, seven compositions including wind instruments and doublebass. Albisi repertory for winds is unpretentious, light, enjoable, however deserving a certain degree of consideration.
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