Italian Vacation

“Come io passo l’estate”: Italian Vacation 3.

A crisp division separates Castiglioni’s silvery Cangianti (Changes) from his other piano works. The 11-minute fingerbuster parallels other contemporaneous mid-century work, except that Castiglioni was more given to cantabile gestures than his Darmstadt pals.

“Come io passo l’estate”: Italian Vacation 3.

A crisp division separates Castiglioni’s silvery Cangianti (Changes) from his other piano works. The 11-minute fingerbuster parallels other contemporaneous mid-century work, except that Castiglioni was more given to cantabile gestures than his Darmstadt pals.

Italian Vacation 2.

Chandos delivers a stellar, single-disc introduction to Dallapiccola, Italy’s first confident serialist.

Italian Vacation 2.

Chandos delivers a stellar, single-disc introduction to Dallapiccola, Italy’s first confident serialist.

Italian Vacation 1.

More than any other 20th-century composer — and like the Gabrielis, the other great Venetian composers centuries before him — Nono wrote music sensitive to the performance space’s acoustics.

Italian Vacation 1.

More than any other 20th-century composer — and like the Gabrielis, the other great Venetian composers centuries before him — Nono wrote music sensitive to the performance space’s acoustics.

Two Italians on Mode

At first glance, Luigi Nono and Giacinto Scelsi could not seem further apart.

Two Italians on Mode

At first glance, Luigi Nono and Giacinto Scelsi could not seem further apart.

Franco Donatoni

Despite its complexity and dissonant vocabulary, Donatoni’s choral writing in In cauda (1982, text by Brandolino Brandolini d’Adda) reaches back through Verdi to Gesualdo in its directness of expression.

Franco Donatoni

Despite its complexity and dissonant vocabulary, Donatoni’s choral writing in In cauda (1982, text by Brandolino Brandolini d’Adda) reaches back through Verdi to Gesualdo in its directness of expression.