CLASSICAL. Original compositions by Antonio Buzzolla. Paola Marzolla soprano, Matteo Ferrara bass baritone, Aldo Fiorentin piano.
24bit/88.2 original digital recording made at Magister Area Studios, Preganziol, Italy, on April 2010
Antonio Buzzolla was born in Adria in 1815 and died in Venice in 1871.
His father Angelo was chapel master in the Adria cathedral; following his footsteps, he soon learnt to play the violin, the piano, the organ and other instruments, and when he was only seventeen years old joined “La Fenice” Theather Orchestra, in Venice; five years later, after he composed and represented his first short opera, the “Ferramondo”, he moved to Naples where he studied with Donizetti and Mercadante. He composed and represented two other operas, “Mastino I della Scala” in 1841 and “Gli Avventurieri” in 1842; in 1843 he set out on a long journey through Europe, working first in Berlin as director in the “Teatro dell’ Opera Italiana” orchestra, then in Dresda, in Poland and in Russia; in 1845 and 1846 he was occasionally in Adria, then he moved to Paris to be the “Opera Italienne” director, and afterwards he moved again in Berlin. From 1848 he definitely settled in Venice, where he occupied the prestigious position of chapel master in San Marco’s Basilica from 1855 until his death in 1871.
Besides the three operas mentioned before, Buzzolla composed and represented two more operas, “Amleto” in 1848 and “Elisabetta di Valois” 1849-50; the rest of his impressive musical production prevalently consists of sacred music, even if his fame is mainly bound to vocal chamber music : he actually composed a considerable amount of airs and short songs, many of which in Venetian dialect, for chant and piano, which found a remarkably favour with the Italian public. Rossini himself declared that Buzzolla in this genre surpassed all the composers who preceded him, included Perucchini and Simone Mayr, authors of the notorious “Biondina in gondoleta” . Actually, the Venetian airs and short songs, though maintaining the popular aspect in the lyrics and in some rhythm cadences and melodic features, expressed a notable care in the composition : they are pages of chamber music full of verve, variety, spontaneity, Venetian flavour, but even of good taste, ability and compositive mastery, “small gems ably harmonized”, as the musical studies pioneer Antonio Casellati defined them.
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