VITTORIO FELLEGARA (1927-2011): Winter Music for Piano Trio, Herbstmusik (1986 - Omaggio a Mahler for String Quartet, Primo Vere and Nuit d’été for Piano Quintet, Berceuse for Flute and Piano, Wiegenlied for Clarinet and Piano, Der Musensohn for Solo Oboe.

Description: Refined and elegant, thoroughly approachable works with a strong basis in tonality by a composer who turned away from the avant garde expression of his large-scale earlier works toward a more intimate, emotional language in the 1980s. Unlike Vivaldi and others whose "seasons" evoke the natural phenomena of the year, Fellegara's pieces, written between the mid-1980s and 1994 and forming a substantial cycle of some forty minutes, are concerned with feelings associated with the changing seasons, with specific reference to external associations, musical, graphic, or literary. Winter Music refers to Shakespeare, who used the external metaphor of wintry weather as a setting to elaborate on sentiments of solitude and pain. The Autumn piece is subtitled "Homage to Mahler" and bids an autumnal farewell to Austrian Romanticism and echoes Mahlerian farewells through the use of a motif from "Loneliness in Autumn" from Das Lied, which permeates the whole gently elegiac piece. Primo vere refers to the Italian Renaissance, particularly Botticelli's art, in burgeoning textures of fulsome chromatic richness. The warm, enfolding harmonies and textures of Nuit d'été were inspired by late 19th century French culture, especially the rise of Impressionism. The music gathers energy toward an ecstatic climax, before receding into a gentle nightfall. The two lullabies explore the expressive capabilities of flute and clarinet, the first gently swaying, lulling the child to sleep; the second based on a German folksong, used as the basis for a series of dreamlike variations. The Muses' Son refers to Goethe's poem, with an archaic, Arcadian feel, one moment contemplative, the next dancelike. Achrome Ensemble.