The music of Gian-Carlo Menotti – lyrical, colourful and communicative – has been sadly neglected by record companies. His may be an eclectic style, but this is music for enjoyment, and it is good that Richard Hickox, as music director of the Spoleto Festival (founded by Menotti), is beginning to tackle the long list of his works, mostly dramatic, but including orchestral pieces like those on this disc.
Even the substantial essay on Menotti in the latest 2001 edition of the New Grove Dictionary concentrates almost entirely on the operas, mentioning only two non-operatic works in passing, leaving out mention even of the Sebastian ballet of 1944, from which the suite has been recorded several times – notably by Leopold Stokowski and the NBC orchestra (when it was about to be disbanded in 1954) in one of RCA’s first experiments in stereo, which still sounds wonderfully impressive.
Although the new performance from Hickox does not always match Stokowski’s in bite, its extra refinement is ample compensation. The rather seedy plot involves the self-sacrifice of the moorish slave, Sebastian, for a courtesan being tortured, but Menotti’s sequence of colourful genre pieces makes light of that scenario. Even the final ‘Pavane’ depicting Sebastian’s death is hardly tragic, poignant rather, enhanced by Hickox’s refined and spacious reading.
In the orchestral triptych, Apocalypse, written for Victor de Sabata in 1951-2, the ambitious first movement, ‘Improperia’, was inspired by the conflict between Christ’s goodness and His suffering at the hands of mankind, but even there Menotti seems to jib at making his music really dark. The striking fanfare motifs punctuating the piece bring echoes of Hollywood film music, and as in the Sebastian Suite, there are many echoes of Stravinsky ballet in the ostinato rhythms; also specifically of The Rake’s Progress in the bare chords, strings contrasted with wind, which introduce the second half of the movement as a kind of purification.
The second movement, ‘La Citta celeste’ (the celestial city), is based on a simple theme like a child’s carol, endlessly repeated and rising in crescendo to a fortissimo close. The finale, ‘Angels of War’, brings a skittering tarantella, hardly sinister enough to represent the devastation of the earth as is suggested, but none the less agreeable, leading to a big brassy march.
The Fantasia for cello and orchestra dates from much later, 1976, and is – if anything – even more inventive, full of striking ideas, notably an opening theme for the cello rather like that in the Walton Cello Concerto, leading to spiky scherzando ideas with more hints of Walton. It is a warmly attractive piece, even if in this live recording the virtuoso demands of the solo part find Raphael Wallfisch not always quite as immaculate in his intonation as usual. The Chandos recording is clear and refined, making one hope that Hickox and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra will continue their Menotti explorations.'