Orchestra Alessandro Scarlatti di Napoli
Giorgio Federico Ghedini, dir.
Benedetto Mazzacurati and Mario Gusella, cellos
Marica Rizzo (soprano), with the “Associazione Scarlatti” Chorus, Naples (Elena Gubitosi, Chorus Master)

Live Italian Radio recordings made in the Alessandro Scarlatti Hall of the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella, Naples, on 28th March, 1952

One of the finest Italian composers of the 20th century, Giorgio Federico Ghedini was almost 35 when his Litanie alla Vergine received what he described as a ‘warm welcome from the public, unreserved praise from all the critics and musicians’.

Ghedini’s very individual orchestration of J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering, two movements of which were omitted from this live 1952 performance in Naples, is notable for its use of a variety of small, usually homogeneous groups from within the orchestra including two pianos but no horns.

L’Olmenata (The Elm Grove) of 1951 is a fascinating concerto for orchestra and two concertante cellos which represents two complementary herbs, the red Glaspi and the white Egusa. At the heart of the concerto lies a haunting, yearning, almost Mahlerian slow movement. These, the only surviving recordings of Ghedini conducting his own music, are re-issued here for the first time in more than 50 years.

Classics Today praised Ghedini’s music on a previous disc as being “fluent, somewhat understated, but nevertheless characterful musical styles steeped in the great traditions of the past (particularly with regard to matters of form), but employing an interestingly personal harmonic language...This is curiously compelling music, frequently quite dissonant but never excessively so, and always so shapely and melodically distinguished that the ear never feels fatigued.”