ALFREDO CASELLA (1883-1947) La Giara, Symphonic Suite, op. 41 First IPO Performance ca. 20 mins. Prelude | Sicilian Dance The story about the girl who was kidnapped by pirates | Nela's dance | Entrance of the farmers | Brindisi (drinking song) | General dance | Finale One of the figures in Dante’s The Divine Comedy is a composer named Casella. One might assume that this 13th-century composer is an ancestor of Alfredo Casella, but there is no evidence for this. Alfredo Casella was born to a family of musicians in Turin. His introduction to the realm of music came through his mother, who taught him to play the piano. At the age of 13, a few weeks after his father, who was a cellist, had passed away, Alfredo and his mother moved to Paris, and he started attending the Conservatoire. Casella spent 19 years in Paris, where he became a renowned pianist, conductor, and skilled composer. During these years, he came to know all the dominant figures of the time – Fauré, Ravel, Debussy, Mahler, Strauss and others. He even missed a chance to buy an early painting by Picasso for a low price, before the Spanish artist became famous. On 20 February 1909, a significant event in the world of art took place in Paris. The Italian poet Marinetti published the “Manifesto of Futurism” in the French newspaper Le Figaro. This was a fundamental publication of the Futurist movement, an artistic Italian movement that emphasized the dynamism of modern life. According to Casella, this was the first time in decades that an original artistic innovation of global interest came from Italy. Casella’s aim was to create in music something similar to what the Futurists made in the world of art. Just as he was experimenting with the latest Parisian avant-garde styles, a sense of national calling and nostalgia for his country arose. His first significant attempt to compose national Italian music was the tone poem Italia (1909), in which the ending is charmingly based on the well-known Napolitan song “Funiculì, funiculà”. Nevertheless, with this piece he still felt strongly influenced by modern foreign trends. The Italian clarity and transparency, which he aimed for, were not achieved until 11 years later, with the ballet La Giara (The Jar). The genesis of this work is due to a fight between two dominant French composers of these years – Eric Satie and Francis Poulenc. In 1924, Satie learned that the director of the Ballets Suédois, based in Paris, intended to commission a work from Poulenc. Satie decided to prevent this commission and offered Casella instead. The director gladly agreed, as he dreamed of a ballet of a national Italian spirit, similar to what Manuel de Falla had done in The Three-Cornered Hat. Casella had already been in Rome for a few years at the time, and despite his busy schedule he accepted the commission. On 19 November 1924, he conducted the premiere in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The ballet is based on a short story by Luigi Pirandello. The story takes place in a Sicilian village, during a season of an exceptionally large olive harvest. Quarrelsome landowner
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