Bartje Bartmans | Dominick Argento - Capriccio "Rossini in Paris" for Clarinet and Orchestra (1985) @bartjebartmans | Uploaded August 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco, Miss Havisham's Fire, The Masque of Angels, and The Aspern Papers.
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Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra "Rossini in Paris" (1985)
Dedication: for George Silfies
I. Une réjouissance. Molto allegro e esuberante (0:00)
II. Une caresse à ma femme. Andante amoroso, senza trascinare (7:07)
III. Un petit train du plaisir. Molto allegro e spiritoso (14:04)
Burt Hara, clarinet and the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Eiji Oue
Composer's notes:
The Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra (Rossini in Paris) is the result of a visit to Pesaro, Rossini's birthplace, during the summer of 1984 to hear Il viaggio a Reims. That was the first opera Rossini composed for Paris, in 1825, and it was being revived for the first time. The music proved to be extraordinarily delightful—witty, touching, outrageous, frivolous, and sentimental: unimportant, to be sure, compared to Beethoven, whose Ninth Symphony was introduced a year earlier, but valuable nonetheless as a reminder that all music need not aspire to a transcendent loftiness. Occasionally, pleasure and entertainment are enough—or so it seems to me.
With that in mind, and reading a recent biography of the composer, it occurred to me to write a piece that not only followed his example but would also be an homage to him. At first I was tempted to use some, actual themes from those delicious piano pieces he called Sins of My Old Age, but Respighi, Britten, and others had already done that, so I merely borrowed a few of their titles to give a direction for each of the three movements that eventually evolved. These titles are not meant to indicate any programmatic content, but only to suggest a mood.
I. UNE RÉJOUISSANCE refers to Rossini's first prolonged stay in Paris,
when he produced a string of triumphs culminating in William Tell and became the most popular figure of his time in the French capital.
II. UNE CARESSE À MA FEMME was Rossini's own loving tribute to his
second wife, Olympe Pélissier, who nursed him through out the many years of illness that followed his retirement from the operatic world.
III. UN PETIT TRAIN DU PLAISIR alludes to the famous Saturday night
parties given by the Rossini's after his recovery—invitations to which were coveted by every celebrated visitor to Paris. It was during these soirées musicales, with Rossini himself at the keyboard, that many of the Sins of My Old Age were first performed.
Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco, Miss Havisham's Fire, The Masque of Angels, and The Aspern Papers.
Please support my channel:
ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans
Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra "Rossini in Paris" (1985)
Dedication: for George Silfies
I. Une réjouissance. Molto allegro e esuberante (0:00)
II. Une caresse à ma femme. Andante amoroso, senza trascinare (7:07)
III. Un petit train du plaisir. Molto allegro e spiritoso (14:04)
Burt Hara, clarinet and the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Eiji Oue
Composer's notes:
The Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra (Rossini in Paris) is the result of a visit to Pesaro, Rossini's birthplace, during the summer of 1984 to hear Il viaggio a Reims. That was the first opera Rossini composed for Paris, in 1825, and it was being revived for the first time. The music proved to be extraordinarily delightful—witty, touching, outrageous, frivolous, and sentimental: unimportant, to be sure, compared to Beethoven, whose Ninth Symphony was introduced a year earlier, but valuable nonetheless as a reminder that all music need not aspire to a transcendent loftiness. Occasionally, pleasure and entertainment are enough—or so it seems to me.
With that in mind, and reading a recent biography of the composer, it occurred to me to write a piece that not only followed his example but would also be an homage to him. At first I was tempted to use some, actual themes from those delicious piano pieces he called Sins of My Old Age, but Respighi, Britten, and others had already done that, so I merely borrowed a few of their titles to give a direction for each of the three movements that eventually evolved. These titles are not meant to indicate any programmatic content, but only to suggest a mood.
I. UNE RÉJOUISSANCE refers to Rossini's first prolonged stay in Paris,
when he produced a string of triumphs culminating in William Tell and became the most popular figure of his time in the French capital.
II. UNE CARESSE À MA FEMME was Rossini's own loving tribute to his
second wife, Olympe Pélissier, who nursed him through out the many years of illness that followed his retirement from the operatic world.
III. UN PETIT TRAIN DU PLAISIR alludes to the famous Saturday night
parties given by the Rossini's after his recovery—invitations to which were coveted by every celebrated visitor to Paris. It was during these soirées musicales, with Rossini himself at the keyboard, that many of the Sins of My Old Age were first performed.
