As a admirer of Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968), particularly his operas (especially
Fedra, Debora e Jaele and Fra Gherardo) and concertos, I was pleased to discover, what appears to be, the sole recording of his Symphony on the internet.
Pizzetti composed one Symphony, his Symphony in A major, which was premiered in Japan in 1940 having been commissioned (by the Japanese Government I think) in celebration of the 2600 anniversary of the Japanese empire. Britten's 'Sinfonia da Requiem' was also commissioned but rejected 'as unsuitable because it did not "express felicitations for the 2,600th anniversary of our country", and was "purely a religious music of Christian nature" (Humphrey Carpenter,
Benjamin Britten:A Biography(London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1992), p.145).
It appears a recording was made of the Symphony at the time of its premiere by Gaetano Komeri conducting the Imperial 2600th-Years Festival Symphonic Orchestra at the Japanese Imperial 2600 Concert in 1940 December 7 at Kabuki-za theatre, Tokyo.
According to Guido M Gati's 1951 book on Pizzetti the Symphony 'is a work of unquestionable significance, epitomizing all that is best in Pizzetti's orchestral music. It consists of four movements and lasts thirty-five minutes. The composition of the orchestra conforms to the normal pattern: triple wood-wind, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, tympani percussion instruments two harps celeste and strings.' (p.99)
The titles of the four movements (together with You Tube links [not titled]) are :
I. Andante non troppo sostenuto ma teso [
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK4k4ZXPlY8&feature=relmfu ]
II. Andante tranquillo [
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4BMxNnyrEY&feature=relmfu ]
III. Rapido [
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdjnQFYgl8E&feature=relmfu ]
IV. Andante faticoso e pesante [
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5ifyK91uLY&feature=relmfu ]
The links can be converted into mp3 files using [
http://www.flvto.com/ ]
