Screen shot of Simone Solimene, Giovanni Masi, and Elena Branno in the performance being discussed
Yesterday morning the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts uploaded its latest video to YouTube. This was the latest offering to be presented as part of the Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Chamber Music Project. Guitarist Giovanni Masi was flanked by two wind players: flutist Simone Solimene on one side and Elena Branno on English horn on the other. As is so often the case with the videos, filming took place in a church, the Collegiata of San Michele Arcangelo in Solofra (Av), Italy; and, when the camera did not dwell on the performers, it explored both the interior and the exterior of the venue.
The music being performed was the composer’s Opus 206, his four-movement “Ecloghe.” Those viewing this video may enjoy observing that the trio performed the entire composition from memory. For those unfamiliar with ancient literature, an eclogue is a poem based on a pastoral subject; and, for many, the genre is best associated with Virgil. While I would not classify Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music as “classical” (in the historic sense of the word), one can easily appreciate the pastoral qualities of the composer’s rhetoric.
The overall duration of the video is less than a quarter of an hour. This allows just the right time for each movement to establish its own unique rhetorical stance along a path that eventually leads to a spirited (as the tempo marking indicates) conclusion. Because they were playing from memory, all three of the musicians were well-focused on how rhetoric was established and then progressed. The result was an engaging intertwining of three distinctive sonorities, which never overstayed its welcome.
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