Alfredo Piatti - Vols 1 & 2

[brendangcarroll]

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8604795--alfredo-piatti-the-operatic-fantasies-vol-1

and, just released,

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8791933--alfredo-piatti-the-operatic-fantasies-vol-2

I am not sure if these two fine CDs of Piatti's transcriptions and operatic paraphrases have been noted here before _ I did a quick search and they did not come up so mea culpa if I am going over old ground -

From Fiona Maddox in the Guardian:

"While not quite champing at the bit for CDs of music by Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901), a star of that 19th-century tradition, I was intrigued to receive two in quick succession. The Italian virtuoso cellist was a favourite of Queen Victoria, and also a composer. His 12 Caprices are central to the solo cello repertoire, but most of the short pieces in The Operatic Fantasies, Volume 2 (Meridian), performed by cellist Adrian Bradbury and pianist Oliver Davies, are world premieres.

The duo have rescued manuscripts from the Donizetti Museum, Bergamo (also Piatti's city of birth) and made performing editions of Piatti's operatic paraphrases and fantasies from Lucia di Lamermoor, La favorita and more: virtuosic (and how) bonbons, brilliantly imitating the bel canto vocal technique, beloved of fashionable drawing rooms, and a route to getting to know opera in a pre-gramophone age.

If they set you off on a serious Piatti trail, try his Cello Concerto No 2, coupled with Schumann's Cello Concerto (Concertstück) (a world premiere recording of its original version), performed by the Royal Northern Sinfonia, conducted by Martin Yates, with Josephine Knight as soloist (Dutton). Both discs, performed by musicians who understand this romantic, lyrical idiom, open an important door on 19th-century musical history."