The music of Gian Francesco Malipiero is generally neglected, at least outside of Italy. His flirtation with Italian fascism may be one reason, although Richard Strauss has escaped a similar fate. More likely, it is that he suffered the fate of in-betweeners everywhere; he wasn't the crowd-pleaser that Respighi was, but his eclectic, largely tonal style made him unacceptable to High Modernism's adherents. In fact, it is just that eclecticism that makes Malipiero ripe for a revival, and conductor Francesco La Vecchia and the ...
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The music of Gian Francesco Malipiero is generally neglected, at least outside of Italy. His flirtation with Italian fascism may be one reason, although Richard Strauss has escaped a similar fate. More likely, it is that he suffered the fate of in-betweeners everywhere; he wasn't the crowd-pleaser that Respighi was, but his eclectic, largely tonal style made him unacceptable to High Modernism's adherents. In fact, it is just that eclecticism that makes Malipiero ripe for a revival, and conductor Francesco La Vecchia and the Orchestra Sinfonia di Roma strongly contribute to that revival here. The four-movement suite Per una favola cavalleresca, drawn from music for a projected Malipiero opera, here receives its world premiere on recordings, and the composer's two violin concertos are hardly more common. Consider the Violin Concerto No. 1, written in the early 1930s. Malipiero largely avoided Classical forms, and even this three-movement work is formally free and rhapsodic. There are hints of Stravinsky,...
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![Malipiero: Violin Concertos [Paolo Chiavacci; Orchestra Sinfonica Di Roma; Francesco La Vecchia] [Naxos: 8573075]](https://www3.alibris-static.com/cover/o88111i3d5m_t.jpg)
