A Symphony by Mascagni?

[Mark Thomas]

What an unexpected prospect. This new CD from the Concerto label of piano music by Mascagni, lists his four movement piano four-hands transcription of a youthful 31 minute Symphony in F major amongst its contents. Jeff Joneikis characterises it as being in late classical and early romantic style, and these sound bites bear that out. Hmmm, don't think that I'm going to bother.

[FBerwald]

Seems very probable as we have yet to see a proper catalog of his works [operatic and non]. Is there a Mascagni expert here?

[patmos.beje]

Mascagni wrote two symphonies prior to his first opera Pinotta (1883/premiered San Remo 1932) and the first incomplete draft of Guglielmo Ratcliff (1884-1887/complete version premiered La Scala, Milano 1895). 

His Symphony in C minor 'for small orchestra with piano' was premiered in December 1879 by a student orchestra at the Instituto Cherubini in his hometown of Livorno just before his 16th birthday.  The Symphony in F major, appearing on the Concerto CD, was composed in 1880 and also performed at the Instituto Cherubini in June, 1881.

According to Allan Mallach in his excellent 'Pietro Mascagni and his Operas' (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002) [only one of two books in English on the composer] the F major Symphony:

'While close to the classical models of Haydn and Mozart and, at its most advanced those of Schubert and Mendelssohn, it is nonetheless an impressive achievement.  It has both individual character and a high level of technical control, comparable to much of the work done by the early romantic masters at the same age.  Furthermore, in contrast to what one might expect knowing Mascagni's subsequent operatic career, it is conceived and executed in symphonic terms, rather than being a collection of tunes cobbled together and more or less arbitrarily called a symphony.' [ibid, p.11]

The Symphony is therefore a student work composed when Mascagni was a teenager learning his craft and endeavouring to develop as a composer.  It appears, although I will have to buy the CD to confirm it, that Mascagni incorporated music from 4th movement 'Allegro molto' of the Symphony in F into the concluding love duet of Pinotta.

Mascagni was a major Italian conductor of his time, not just of opera but also of symphonic music, premiering, for example, the first Italian performance of Tchaikovsky's 'Pathetique' Symphony.

Given his statement in later life that he would only compose a symphony once his musical imagination was exhausted – a remark to be understood in the context of a polemical defence of Italian opera – a Symphony by Mascagni the opera composer was never likely.

[Mark Thomas]

Thank you. Utterly fascinating.