http://tiny.cc/XVII_stag_concertistica
Fascinating programme in Viterbo for the series of Prof Franco Carlo Ricci .
The distinguished pianist Alessandro De Luca with an eclectic programme of music from the first half of the 20th century .Twelve Preludes by the almost unknown Vittorio Rieti ( a vast volume written by Prof Ricci outlines his extraordinary life – his works were often commissioned and played by the duo Gold and Fitzdale) through Poulenc Five improvisations and Humoresque and Stravinsky Tango,Circus Polka and the Piano rag music (commissioned by Artur Rubinstein who then refused to play it as he refused to accept Stravinsky’s insistence that the piano was only a percussion instrument.Later though Stravinsky dedicated to him the piano version of Petrushka).
Gershwin’s own arrangements of two of his most popular songs: ‘The Man I love’ and ‘I got rhythm’ brought this extraordinarily interesting programme to a scintillating conclusion.
No score or I pad to be seen from a master pianist who has obviously lived with and loved these very rarely heard works for a lifetime.
Vittorio Rieti (January 28, 1898 – February 19, 1994) was born in Alexandria in Egypt but moved to Milan to study economics. He subsequently studied in Rome under Respighi and Casella, and lived there until 1940.In 1925, he temporarily moved to Paris and composed music for Balanchine’s ballet for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes : Barabau.He emigrated to the United States in 1940, becoming a naturalized American citizen on the 1st of June 1944. He taught at the Peabody Conservatory 1948–49), Chicago Musical College (1950–54), Queens College, New York (1958–60), and New York College ofMusic (1960–64). He died in New York on 19 February 1994.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 