CARUSO: LE SUE CANZONI

CARUSO: HIS SONGS (LDV14096) 

CARUSO: HIS SONGS composed FOR him and BY him

9 songs composed BY him

Adorables Tourments (1907)
No! Nun di ca so stato I* (1911)
Fenesta Abbandunata* (1912)
Dreams of Long Ago (1912)
Canzona a Dispietto* (1912)
Tiempo Antico (1912)
Per Sempre Libertà/Liberty Forever* (1917)
Campane a Sera (1918)
Serenata (Souvenirs d’un Concert) (1919)

39 songs composed FOR him by

Antonio Pini-Corsi (1903) | Francesco Paolo Tosti (1903-1906-1909) ! Ruggero Leoncavallo (1904 -1913) | Luigi Denza (1905) | Arturo Buzzi-Peccia* (1906-1915) | Enrico Leboffe* (1906) | Pier Adolfo Tirindelli* (1906-1920) Mario Ferrarese* (1908 – 1910) | Salvatore Cardillo (1911) Renato Brogi* (1911) | Mary Helen Brown* (1913) Juan Gay* (1914) | Angelo Bettinelli* (1914) Gaetano Calamani* (1915) | Raoul Gunsbourg* (1915) | Leo Strockoff* (1915) Leopoldo Mugnone* (1916) | Luigi Carvelli* (1916) Gabriele Sibella* (1916) | Pedro Guétary* (1916) | Natalie Townsend (1917) | Ariadne Holmes Edwards (1918) | Albano Seismit-Doda* (1918 – 1919)
Josephine Uterhart* (1919) | Luis Mendoza Lopez* (1920)

* world première recording

A symbol of Italian culture and bel canto, Enrico Caruso went from the stages of provincial Naples to the most prestigious opera houses in the world, and with the same naturalness with which he played the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, he could return to being the scugnizzo (street urchin) of popular songs. But what is less known is that the great tenor himself composed a small number of these songs, and this album brings them together for the first time, along with a wide selection of pieces written especially for him by his contemporaries. A little-known repertoire that deserves to be rediscovered today, 150 years after Caruso's birth, by a new audience.

MARK MILHOFER, tenor

MARCO SCOLASTRA, piano

2 CD