• Suite E-Dur für Violine & Orchester; Piccola Suite für Cello & Orchester
  +Raffaele Cacciola: Il Canto Dell'Amore on a theme by Francesco Cilea für Solisten & Streichorchester
  Leonardo Leo: Konzert für Cello & Streichorchester D-Dur

First recordings of unpublished instrumental works by a master of verismo.

Several recent albums on Brilliant Classics have broadened our understanding of Francesco Cilea beyond his status as composer of L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. His piano music, chamber music and songs all bear witness to a typically Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy.

Cilea gave up writing for the stage after the failure of his opera Gloria in 1907, although Toscanini participated in the orchestra, and his lyrical talents were at odds with the prevailing trends of modernism. He began teaching, but did not give up composing completely. Instead, he returned to instrumental music, and the works on this album are among the fruits of this revived inspiration.

In addition to Cilea's celebrated melodic vein, the Suite for violin and the Piccola Suite for orchestra reveal his (perhaps un-Italian) talent for counterpoint, as well as an approach to tonal harmony that reflects his awareness of innovation, particularly among French composers of the time. Cilea orchestrated the Suite in 1946 from his Suite for Violin and Piano, written nine years earlier. The four short movements are in neoclassical style and include an elegant minuet followed by an Andante sostenuto in the very unclassical key of C sharp minor.

The Piccola Suite (1931) more thoroughly embraces the idioms of French music of the time, like Messiaen's early works, with its modal harmony, whole-tone scales and sequences of seventh and ninth chords: again, a far cry from what we would expect from the composer Adriana Lecouvreurs. The arrangement, revision and orchestration of Leonardo Leo's Concerto in D major for cello (written in 1737) bears witness to Cilea's close association with the Naples Conservatory, where he had studied and of which he was director until his retirement in 1935. His generous orchestration and yet his respect for the writing language of the 18th century form a fascinating and almost unknown parallel to the Cello Concerto in D, which Schönberg composed in 1931 after a work by Georg Matthias Monn from 1746.

This unique overview of Cilea's oeuvre is rounded off by a modern work, the first recording of the Canto dell'amore by Raffaele Cacciola, born in 1965. The style of this Sinfonia concertante is a homage to Cilea's example in everything but the name: unpredictable in sound, but always melodic. These Milanese musicians express the typically Italian character of the music in the tradition of Cilea's verismo.

The Italian composer Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) is best known for his operas, in particular "Adriana Lecouvreur". However, his contributions to instrumental music should not be overlooked. Although less well known than his operatic works, Cilea's instrumental works display a melodic richness and emotional depth characteristic of the Romantic period.

Cilea's orchestral works demonstrate his mastery of lyrical themes and dramatic expression. His works are imbued with a sense of Italian warmth and passion, reflecting the composer's deep attachment to his homeland.

This new recording presents the Suite for violin and orchestra, Il Canto dell'Amore, Cilea's arrangement of a cello concerto by Leonardo Leo and the Piccola Suite for cello and orchestra.

Performed by one of Italy's leading cellists, Enrico Bronzi, violinist Massimo Quarta and the Virtuosi Della Scala under the direction of Filippo Arlia.