Capitoli pugliesi

Three composers outline the steps of an evocative musical journey. Apulia was a real second home for the “candid” Nino Rota (Milan, 1911 – Rome, 1979), by virtue of the teaching experience at the Liceo musicale in Taranto and then in Bari, who he directed from 1949 to 1977. “[Rota] is the most “musical” of the musicians. I mean that he lives “only” in music and he is happy there alone” (Alberto Savinio). Snug in this happiness as a nut in its shell, he wrote the Sonata in D major for clarinet and piano in 1945 and the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in 1973, two works that gladly indulge in the cheerful light of a melodic freshening sluice and in a seductive melodiousness, where fits of sprightly ironic malice coexist with moments of languid melancholy. Our journey continues with Raffaele Gervasio (Bari, 1910 – Rome, 1994). One of the most interesting Apulian composers of the last century, Gervasio has worked closely for radio, theatre, cinema and television. Capitoli op. 132 (1994) is the result of seven movements where the clarinet, piano and cello trigger a game of tensions and distensions, shaping a fascinating dialogue dappled by intermittent imaginative oneiricism. Tied to tradition but projected towards the future, Teresa Procaccini (1934) builds her musical idiom on the fidelity to formal classical values and, at the same time, new sounds possibilities. The youthful Sonata rapsodica for cello and piano op. 8 (1957) is characterized by dramatic atmosphere and vibrant restlessness, emphasized with extraordinary poetry. The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano op. 36 (1968) doesn’t get far away the “tradition of the new”, woven from a melodic lyricism that opens out in ample lines.