Presents
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Serenade in E flat Major
For String Nonet (4 Violins, 2 Violas, 2 Cellos & Bass)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) was born in Venice, the son of a German father and an Italian mother. Throughout his life, he felt torn between the two cultures, uniting in himself the deep-felt German seriousness of purpose with sunny, Italian bel canto melody. His father was a painter and initially Ermanno wanted to follow in his footsteps. However after studying painting in Rome and Munich, he enrolled in the Royal Bavarian Conservatory and studied composition with Joseph Rheinberger. He spent the rest of his life between Munich and Venice, never entirely satisfied in either place. This tension was, however, an important source of creativity for him. Wolf-Ferrari enjoyed his greatest success while still rather young, winning international fame for several of his operas between 1900 and the First World War. He served as Choral Director in Milan and later became the director of the Marcello Music Academy in Venice and taught at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Though mainly known for his operas, he was quite fond of chamber music and wrote a fair amount including two piano trios, a piano quintet, a string trio, a string quartet, a string quintet, a string sextet and a string serenade.
He began work on the Serenade while at the Royal Conservatory in Munich in 1892. He completed it the following year in 1893 and performed at the Conservatory at a year end concert. His composition professor Josef Rheinberger was impressed enough with the work to recommend it to the Munich publisher Steingraber who brought it out in 1894. It is an interesting work in that it is almost always performed by a string orchestra but it was only performed by a nonet at its premier. It was Steingraber who gave the work the title Serenade for Strings. Accurate as far as it goes in that it is only for strings, but not accurate if it implies a string orchestra because an examination of the writing shows virtually no divisi writing. That is to say, there is really no need for 2 first violins or 2 second violins or 2 violas or 2 cellos. The work could literally be played as a string quintet and nothing would be lost. It would sound different in that it would be more intimate which is probably what Wolf-Ferrari intended. It still retains that intimacy as a nonet.
The opening movement, Allegro, is sunny and exuding good spirits and joie de vivre. The second movement Andante is really two movements in one. The Andante is calm and affectionate but there is a martialPresto middle section. A short, lively Scherzo follows. The finale, Presto, begins as a nervous fugue which explodes into mass of jovial sound.
Either out of print are quite hard to obtain, we hope this excellent thiw work will find a place on the stands of professionals and amateurs alike and hopefully regain a place in the concert hall.
Parts: $49.95
Parts & Score: $59.95
