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Italian Music senza Italian Opera New York
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
05/11/2025 -
Giulio Briccialdi: Wind Quintet No. 1, Opus 124
Giacomo Puccini: Crisantemi
Nino Rota: Nonetto
Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade (Arranged for String Quartet and English Horn by Hans Hadamowsky)
Giuseppe Verdi: String Quartet in E Minor
The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble 
G. Briccialdi: Wind Quintet (© Samuel A. Dog))
“Music is yet in its nonage in England is now learning Italian, which is its best master. Thus, being further from the sun, we are of later growth than our neighbor, and must be content to shake off our barbarity by degrees.”
Henry Purcell (1690)
“I don’t think I shall ever become a convert to Italian music. It is such trash.”
Richard Strauss (1886), later successfully sued for plagiarizing Funiculì funiculà
The single word describing four-fifths of this afternoon’s Met Chamber Ensemble program would be giocoso–lively, jovial, in good spirits. (The single exception being Puccini’s lugubrious Chrysanthemums. But the composer of La bohème, Il trittico and Turandot is easily absolved of sin.)
Four of the five composers were Italian, while the German composer wrote an Italian Serenade. And while the Italians usually added a slow movement, they were never molto passionato, never doleful, they all seemed to say, “Well, those Germans had slow movements, so we may as well stick them in our own music.”
The best known was Giuseppe Verdi, who–to kill time between opera rehearsals–dashed off a string quartet. It was played immaculately by Miran Kim, Amy Kaufmann, Zoë Martin-Doike and Julia Bruskin. And was an homage not to Rossini or Bellini but to Haydn and Mozart, whose Verdi kept on his bedroom shelf.
Not that one would confuse the four-movement piece with Haydn. It was thick in texture, the first movement a bit melancholy. Yet in all four movements it showed a bit of homage to Aida, and a scherzo foretelling Falstaff.
As for Herr Beethoven, Verdi, obviously in a giococo mood, gave a parody fugue like the Grosse in the finale.
All was done with craft, with art, with lyricism
My own favorite of the afternoon was by Giulio Briccialdi. About which everybody except Maron Khoury would exclaim “”Who?”
Maron Khoury was the flutist of the Wind Quintet. Briccialdi was known in the 19th Century as “the Paganini of the flute.” Thus this quintet had a few startlingly good flute solos.
Far more important, for a concert omitting Rossini, this was echt Rossini. Not a single movement of the three had a moment which didn’t move, which didn’t have those Rossini crescendos, the childish tunes which branched out and developed.
For a chamber musician, teacher and composer who died in 1881!!!!!–the year of Béla Bartók’s birth–-, this was a man who obviously was thrilled with antediluvian bel canto with the aura of Mozart comedies. The five wind players obviously had a good time, rollicking through the endless tunes for a most diverting divertimento.
The novelty of the afternoon was–by far–the most familiar work. Hugo Wolf wrote his Italian Serenade originally for string quartet, then string orchestra. It has probably been arranged for full orchestra as well.
That, though, would simply divert from the breathlessness, the lightness, the swing of the music. This afternoon Hans Hadamowsky, a German composer and oboist, gave the Hugo Wolf, a totally new voice.
Rather, a string quartet (as the original) and a cor anglais (English horn), played by Pedro R. Dìaz. An oboe would have been too plangent, a clarinet too colorful. But an English horn elevated the strings. As in Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, the horn was the picture of softness, of countryside, of ancient pastorale.
Nino Rota: Nonetto (© Samuel A. Dog)
The fifth work, Nonetto, was written by the greatest Italian film composer, Nino Rota. During his long career, he wrote for the finest European and American directors. Nino Rota was as linked with Fellini and Visconti as John Williams with Spielberg and Bernard Herrmann with Hitchcock. Where, in fact, would Dolce vita or La strada or Visconti’s The Leopard be without Nino Rota?
In five movements, his Nonetto made its own mark with the Met Chamber Ensemble, though only a nimble mind would associate the music with a particular film.
With a single exception.
The first movement had themes reflecting those childhood dreams from one of my favorite Fellini films, Amarcord. And while the music was decidedly with a classical structure, the Nino Rota visual imagination peered through every measure of the opening Allegro.
It was decidedly an unusual program. But one expects no less from the Met Players. A few decades ago, before James Levine, the Met Orchestra was little more than an oom‑pah band. Today its players as avatars of chamber music, are excellent exponents of some hidden treasures.
Harry Rolnick
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