CAMILLO TOGNI (1922-1993): Helian di Trakl for Soprano and Orchestra, Variazioni for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 27, LUIGI DALLAPICCOLA (1904-1975): An Mathilde for Soprano and Orchestra, Piccolo Concerto per Muriel Couvreux for Piano and Orchestra.

Description: Dallapiccola's delightful little piano concerto, written for a young pianist, opens the disc. The first part is based on a pentatonic theme, and is very tonal. In the second section a dodecaphonic series appears in a mysterious, Busonian nocturne, but like the rest of the piece the music is of such limpid, crystalline clarity and lyrical attractiveness that its technical origins are not apparent. The breezy finale is straightforwardly tonal. An Mathilde is much more what one expects of Dallapiccola; three settings of Heine, the work combines lyricism and drama with highly expressive dodecaphony, Webernian economy and the composer's characteristic use of tone-color as a thematic device. Togni's Trakl songs, written in the same year (1955), use a similar idiom, though with a great emphasis on textural clarity. The younger composer's work sounds more determinedly modernistic, especially in its pointillistic instrumental accompaniment. The 20-minute Variations, though dodecaphonic, is structured to permit suggestions of tonal harmony, and in fact the work's overall vocabulary sounds more chromatic than serial. The work is of elegiac character, with a playful second variation providing a kind of scherzo. German texts. Livia Rado (soprano), Aldo Orvieto (piano), Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto; Marco Angius.