Scarlatti, Pasta 2022
This Week in Classical Music: October 24, 2022. Transient entry: Scarlatti and Pasta. Domenico Scarlatti, a son of Alessandro , was born on October 26th of 1685, the 12 months that additionally gave us Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Domenico’s piano sonatas are as standard as ever, although out of the 555 that he had written throughout his lifetime in Italy and Spain, only some are performed typically, whereas most of them stay unknown. A number of pianists and harpsichordists, alternatively, have recorded all of Scarlatti’s sonatas; Scott Ross, who was the primary one to report the entire set in 1985. The British keyboardist Richard Lester additionally recorded all of them and the Italian pianist Carlo Grante is in a center of his Scarlatti challenge, he’s enjoying them on a Bösendorfer piano. Right here, nearly randomly is Ivo Pogorelić enjoying Sonata in G minor, Okay. 450.
Luciano Berio, one of the attention-grabbing composers of the second half of the 20th century, was born on October 24th of 1925. And Georges Bizet was additionally born this week, on October 25th of 1838. .jpg "Giuditta Pasta in the role of Anne Boleyn, by Karl Brullov")
One considerably uncommon anniversary: Giuditta Pasta. Pasta, born on October 26th of 1797 close to Milan, was one of many best voices of the early 19th century. Primarily based on the descriptions of her contemporaries, she was an actual “soprano sfogato”. Sfogato, a uncommon voice, has a really massive vary, from mezzo, and even contralto, to the coloratura soprano. Most of the soprano sfogato roles have been written by the bel canto composers of the 19th century, Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. Maria Callas could also be thought-about a soprano sfogato: she sung mezzo roles, comparable to Carmen, Rosina and Cenerentola, and likewise Norma, Lucia de Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, which require a really excessive tessitura, reaching the E above the excessive C. Three well-known roles have been created particularly for Giuditta Pasta: Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, which she premiered in 1830, Amina in Bellini‘s La sonnambula and Norma in Bellini’s opera, each of which she sung in 1831. Within the absence of the recordings of Pasta’s voice, right here’s Maria Callas within the Mad scene (Il dolce suona) from Lucia de Lammermoor, in a 1953 recording.
Pasta carried out in all main opera homes of Europe and likewise visited St-Petersburg: the portrait, above, by the Russian painter Karl (Kirill) Bryullov, was made there in 1830.
