Judith Howarth / Àngel Òdena / Oviedo Filarmonía / Friedrich Haider ERMANNO WOLF-FERRARI Il Segreto di Susanna

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s prolific early career succeeded in launching a fundamental renewal of opera buffa, offering a clear alternative to the dominance of Wagner and Puccini, while his Venetian upbringing inspired a songlike and lyrical style. With its subtle orchestration and vivacious Mediterranean charm, Il segreto di Susanna (‘Susanna’s Secret’) is a magical comic opera that became a box office success in its day and remains one of Wolf-Ferrari’s most frequently performed works. The early Serenade reveals his innate gift for inspired melody, expressing both carefree bliss and bitter melancholy.

Costantino Catena WOLF-FERRARI Piano Music

The name of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) is now emerging from the shadow cast by his wartime collaboration with Italy’s Fascist regime. Operas such as I quattro rusteghi and I gioielli della Madonna occupy a place on the fringes of the repertoire, and Brilliant Classics have made a persuasive case for him as a composer of chamber music in a post-Brahmsian mould with the release of his piano trios. 

This album was recommended by Classics Today for the ‘eloquently sustained’ performance of Trio Archè, displaying ‘a whimsical discursiveness… that might be described as the lovechild of Schubert and Fauré.’ Much the same might be said of Wolf-Ferrari’s piano music on the evidence of this new recording by the Italian pianist Costantino Catena, who has made many well-received albums with the Camerata Tokyo. To open the album, Catena has made his own completion of an early, substantial (19-minute) Bagatelle that Wolf-Ferrari left unfinished. Theatricality and high contrast mark the Bagatelle throughout, as one would expect from an experienced composer for the stage, and they lend beguiling variety to the other first recordings here, of Variations on the minuet from Verdi’s Falstaff, a Chopin-Phantasie in B minor and a Scherzino, all dating from Wolf-Ferrari’s prodigious twenties when he was the toast of new Italian music. 

Wolf-Ferrari turned to the Romantic genre of character-piece in three Impromptus Op.13 (1904) and three Klavierstücke Op.14 (1905), but he addressed the form in a personal and authentic manner. Some of the rhythmic sophistication may remind us of Brahms, and the delicately embroidered harmony of Hugo Wolf, but Wolf-Ferrari’s characteristic sweetness of tone does not descend into decorative mannerism or affected sentimentalism: he was, to the core, a German-Italian composer with a foot on both sides of the Alps.

Francesca Dego PAGANINI - WOLF-FERRARI Violin Concertos

Celebrated for her sonorous tone, compelling interpretations and flawless technique, Francesca Dego is quickly becoming one of the most sought after young violinists on the international scene. Signed in 2012 by Deutsche Grammophon, her debut album of Paganini’s 24 Caprices and a subsequent complete survey of Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas received critical acclaim. Autumn 2017 sees the release of her highly anticipated first concerto disc featuring works by Paganini and Wolf-Ferrari.

This album marks Italian violinist Francesca Dego’s debut orchestral recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

It features two Italian masterpieces: Wolf-Ferrari’s seldom-performed Violin Concerto and Paganini’s renowned Violin Concerto Number 1, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year.

Francesca recorded Wolf-Ferrari’s Violin Concerto live in March 2017, when she gave the UK premiere of the piece at Symphony Hall with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the renowned Italian conductor Daniele Rustioni.

Francesca regularly appears with the world’s leading orchestras, performing both the Paganini and Wolf-Ferrari concertos extensively in the future.