Customer Reviews

Italian Festival

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The Naxos label has always been innovative, offering repertoire that has been either unknown or neglected. Music that deserves to be heard. This "Italian Festival" CD by the CSR Symphony conducted by Ondrej Lenard is a hidden treasure of delights that have to be heard to be believed. The 13 tracks are expertly played with beautiful recorded digital sound lasting 65 minutes. Moreover, the major pieces on this disc are awesome, full of melodic charm and emotion. Namely, I'm referring to the Massenet: Scenes Napolitaines; Godard: Scenes Italiennes; and Charpentier: Impressions D'Italie,...three gorgeous works by none other than Frenchmen! The shorter works are splendid as well and will certainly delight any listener. They include a Tarantelle by Liszt (a Hungarian), an instrumental version of Leoncavallo's popular Mattinata, another Tarantelle by Cui (a Russian), a Saltarello by Gounod (another Frenchman), the dreamy Venetian Gondolier by Mendelssohn (a German Jew), and a snappy orchestral version of Denza's Funiculi, funicula. What a stroke of genious by Naxos to produce a CD compilation of 9 works of which all but 2 are by non-Italian composers. But make no mistake, all this music is Italian-sounding to the core. This disc is easily worth 4 times it's bargain price. I advise all readers of this review to buy this CD. I am absolutely certain that you won't regret your purchase, nor find most of this music available on any other label. I can't say enough good things about "Italian Festival". SUPERIOR RECOMMENDATION!!!

Naxos deserves kudos' for coming up with this colorful collection of Italian inspired works by mostly non Italian composers. This lively set includes no less than three tarantelle with French, Hungarian, and Russian spice. The "Venetian Gondodier Song" is the most humble of the pieces.

So your in for a lot of folksy melodies here! For authenticity two of Italy's favorite sons, Luigi Denza and opera great Leoncavallo crash this Italian wanabee party with two big hits.

Lenard and his Bratislava orchestra play with vigor and commitment like old "pisanos". What ever their ethnic background

all involved make this disc a pure joy! Magnifico!!!

Taken individually, these impressions of Italy by nine composers from five countries are rather well done: The music is, with the exception of the Mendelssohn, very lively, consisting mostly of variations on the Neapolitan tarantella, and the Slovakian orchestra rises to the occasion, so that I found it quite hard to believe this was the same orchestra that had previously produced the rather undistinguished 'Spanish Festival'. I rather suspect that the difference lay in the conductor: Ondrej Lenard is not only a fine musician, he also speaks Slovakian and was obviously able to communicate his concept to the orchestra. Where I would find fault is in the programme as a whole: the individual pieces are too similar to each other, and listening to the whole CD at a stretch soon becomes tiring (unless it is playing softly in the background while one is eating one's Pizza Napoli). But if you just want to listen to one or other of these pieces on occasion (or if you are a classical music disc jockey!), the quality here is good. The biggest highlight is Gustave Charpentier's 'Impressions d'Italie No. 5', but all the other tracks have something to recommend them.