Pratella & Anzoletti: Music For Viola & Piano [CD]

Francesco Balilla Pratella is known as a musician and theorist of Futurism, but his activity was much broader: he was a writer, librettist, ethnomusicologist, and director of the ""Verdi"" Institute in Ravenna. He studied in Pesaro with Antonio Cicognani, to whom he dedicated the Sonata prima per organo op. 23 (1917), which blends references to the Baroque with pushes towards atonality. He contributed with dedication to the dissemination of Italian instrumental music, as evidenced by the transcriptions for viola and piano by Francesco Pasi presented here. This project also includes the 7 Composizioni per viola e pianoforte by Marco Anzoletti (1867-1929), virtuosic and melodramatic, representative of the conflict between operatic tradition and Central European influences.All the pieces on this recording - curated by Federica Cardinali and Lisa Redorici - are world premiere recordings, the result ofphilological research that recovers an unjustly forgotten Italianinstrumental heritage.