Alberto Curci Violin Concertos Franco Gulli violin Studio Orchestra • Franco Capuana Alberto CURCI (1886-1973) Violin Concertos This release brings together four superb performances Alfredo – along with Oreste de Rubertis – founded the by one of the great Italian violinists, Franco Gulli, Neapolitan version of the Amici della Musica movement, sympathetically supported by a pick-up orchestra of which for more than a decade brought the finest musicians expert Milanese musicians conducted by Franco Capuana. and ensembles to the city for recitals. Their firm diversified The name of the composer Alberto Curci (1886-1973) is into film music and in 1932 and 1936 opened branches in virtually unknown outside Italy – and not that well known Rome and Milan, the latter destined to become the major within it – even though he spent his entire career in plain publishing enterprise under Alfredo’s direction, with its sight in Palermo, Parma and his native Naples, teaching the offices in the Galleria del Corso. violin, acting as a musical administrator and lending a hand with the family music publishing business. Alberto Curci, born in Naples on 5 December 1886, showed a precocious talent for the violin and studied at the San A convenient starting point for the Curci story is 1860, when Pietro a Majella Conservatorio with Angelo Ferni, a pupil Francesco Curci (1824-1912) moved from Avellino to Naples of Alard, Bériot and Vieuxtemps. Graduating in 1904, and opened a shop selling musical instruments and hand- Alberto was advised by the pianist Eugen d’Albert to go copied scores. His children Pasquale, Achille and Concetta to Berlin to further his studies with Joseph Joachim. This continued what became the Casa Musicale Fratelli Curci; he did the following year, making his Berlin début in 1907 and in the year of their grandfather’s death, Pasquale’s at the Mozart Saal, with the Blüthner Orchestra under sons Giuseppe (1884-1953), Alberto and Alfredo (1891- Fritz Steinbach, who invited him to appear in Cologne. He 1952) set up the Casa Editrice di Operette e Vaudevilles to toured Scandinavia in 1908 and in 1909, Mendelssohn’s publish the lighter kind of opera and operetta. One of their centenary, played the E minor Concerto in many cities. first editions was Alberto’s operetta Liebesboykott (War to With the pianist Maria Carreras and the cellist C. Guaita love), composed to Johannes Bubendey’s German libretto he gave a series of chamber concerts in Berlin; and he won and first performed at the Neues Operetten Theater in praise for his interpretation of the Beethoven Concerto. Hamburg. The Casa Curci premises moved from Via dei He took lessons from Otakar Ševčík in Prague in 1910 and Tre Re to Via Roma 304/5 in 1919, the year Alberto and the next year had a success with Liebesboykott, inspired ̶ 2 ̶ Alberto Curci, Positano (NA), Italy, 1956. © Edizioni Curci historical archives ̶ 3 ̶ Franco Gulli, Franco Capuana and Alberto Curci at the recording sessions ̶ 4 ̶ by Aristophanes’s Lisistrata (its Italian première was given first theme is initially heard from the orchestra, then taken in 1913 in Ancona). The Great War found him back in Italy, up by the soloist; the second theme is more yielding and giving concerts for the troops. In 1916 Guido Alberto Fano after both themes have been developed, with splendid invited him to teach at his alma mater the Conservatorio, writing for the violin, the movement ends emphatically but with the end of the war in 1918 he resumed touring, with a coda. The Romanza is a beautiful inspiration which, traversing Europe, visiting the Dutch East Indies and the if there were any justice in the world, would be a hit on Far East with fellow violinist Luigi La Volpe and resuming Classic FM and other stations that thrive on broadcasting his German contacts. After teaching in Palermo and Parma, individual movements: it opens very quietly, with hushed he was persuaded back to the Naples Conservatorio by strings, and the violin introduces an optimistic theme which Francesco Cilea, and spent 40 years nurturing violinistic is succeeded by a contrasting but related theme; the music talents there. All this time he was involved in the Edizioni becomes more passionate and a brief violin cadenza leads Curci publishing business, writing didactic works which to another effusion and a quiet ending. The skittish finale are still used by violin teachers, translating the teaching starts with a springy rhythm in the orchestra, before the books of Alfred Cortot, Joseph Szigeti and Carl Flesch into violin spins off into a Neapolitan dance; a broader theme is Italian and eventually allowing some of his own music to introduced for contrast, the dance returns and the various be issued. In 1966 he founded the Fondazione Curci, and motifs compete in the coda. the following year instituted a biennial violin competition. He died in Naples on 2 June 1973. The Second Concerto, Op. 30, premièred at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, in 1962 with Franco Gulli as soloist Judging by these works and his shorter pieces for violin and Franco Caracciolo conducting the opera orchestra, is – typified by the Mazurca brillante, Op. 26 – Curci was influenced by impressions Curci gained when touring the not an especially original composer. But he did have a Slavic countries. After a slow orchestral introduction, the genuine melodic gift, heard at its freshest in the Concerto violin makes a tentative entrance in the Allegro giusto with romantico, Op. 21. This delightful work, published in 1944 quite a strongly profiled theme which leads to declamatory although one suspects it was written somewhat earlier, rhapsodic gestures involving much passagework; a soaring, was first heard in Naples, played by Arrigo Pelliccia with lyrical second theme alternates with the first theme and a the Alessandro Scarlatti Orchestra under Ferruccio Scaglia. martial sub-theme before the orchestra asserts itself in a In recent years it has been played by the fine violinist dramatic episode. This is a much busier opening movement Fulvio Luciani. In the Allegro animato, quite a masculine than that of Op. 21 but once again it is beautifully written ̶ 5 ̶ Original mono LP cover [Curci Records LP 120] ̶ 6 ̶ for the violin, with passionate outbursts. It leads straight the Concerto ends in brilliant fashion. It was published in into the Andante, a passionate, rhapsodic movement with 1966. a lovely main theme and a quiet close. A violin cadenza in gipsy style, interrupted by the orchestra, heralds a The Suite italiana in stile antico, Op. 34, also published in characterful finale with various episodes, including one in 1966, seems to come from an earlier part of the century gipsy mode, which ends with a brilliant virtuosic coda. The and taps into a tradition, upheld chiefly by the two Rs – Concerto was published in 1963. Reger in Germany and Respighi in Italy – of writing ‘in the old style’. Before the revival of genuine Baroque music, a lot After two concertos with folkloristic elements, Curci of unashamedly mock-baroque works were composed and deliberately set out to compose his Third Concerto, Op. 33, at the same time, a brisk market in fakes was established in a more symphonic style, with some cyclic use of themes. by such men as Fritz Kreisler and the brothers Henri and After a bright, brief tutti, we hear the animated first theme; Marius Casadesus. Curci’s Suite pays charming homage to the second theme is broader and more lyrical and in the Baroque with a sturdy Allegro, incorporating lyrical general this Allegro appassionato is very attractive music, interludes; a lovely, graceful Larghetto pastorale in siciliano attractively worked out; the orchestra has a stormy tutti in style; a Minuetto with a delightful ending; a Gavotta with the development and another one, in the form of a coda, varied strains which ends whimsically; and a merry dance ends the movement emphatically. The Andante, introduced (Presto) with virtuoso figuration for the soloist. quietly by the orchestra, employs a single song-like theme to which one could almost add words – it is heard twice, in For half a century Franco Gulli, born on 1 September 1926, slightly different moods. The orchestra features briefly at was one of the world’s top violinists, a noble ambassador the start of the finale and alternates with cadenza passages for the Italian string style and a superb musician. For much for the soloist, before the main theme appears, followed of that time he was almost equally renowned as a teacher, by a lyrical theme and virtuosic passagework. Up to now, latterly at Bloomington, Indiana, where he died on 20 in his concertos Curci has used trills a good deal, especially November 2001. Those who believe in ‘the spirit of place’ in Op. 30, but has been sparing with double-stopping and will find it significant that this remarkably adept all-rounder cadenzas. He now gives his soloist a major cadenza, with hailed from Trieste, a city with Italian, Austrian and Slavic interjections from the orchestra, to underline that this influences. Although Gulli had the chiselled features and finale contains the most virtuosic music in any of the three dark complexion of the typical Italian, the family name had works. Violinist and orchestra review earlier themes and at one time been Gullich. The young Franco was given a small ̶ 7 ̶ violin on his fifth birthday and was initially taught by his the most beautiful string trio sound of the time, perfect father. Franco Gulli Snr – who had himself studied in Prague in balance and intonation and with a burnished bronze with Otakar Ševčík and Jan Marák – practised with the boy italianate tone.