Canti Della Natura (Songs of Nature)
Chamber Ensemble
Richard Danielpour
About
Canti Della Natura (Songs of Nature) was composed in the fall of 2019 on a commission from the Curtis Institute of Music with the generous support of Ken Lipper. It is scored for soprano, piano, and obbligato cello. The work was written to honor my dear friend, Nicola Bulgari on his 80th birthday year. The texts are taken from sonnets that were presumably written by Antonio Vivaldi to accompany the performance of his famous Four Seasons concerti grossi. I decided to set the work in the original Italian rather than in an English translation in part, because, although the text is 18th century Italian, modern Italian is a language that I speak as a result of my many visits to Rome, Tuscany, and Northern Italy over the last 40 years.
The invocation of the seasons in this work, serves as a metaphor for the natural cycles of birth, death, and rebirth in nature, and in our very lives. Each of the 12 movements involve soprano voice save one: an intermezzo for cello and piano, which is symbolic of the change of seasons from Winter to Spring. The cycle was first performed in France at the Musique du vert Infiniti festival on July 3, 2021. Curtis on Tour performed the work throughout various cities in Europe in the fall of 2022.
Performance
| Richard Danielpour |
Canti Della Natura (Songs of Nature) I. Estate II. Estate III. Autunno IV. Autunno V. Autunno VI. Inverno VII. Inverno VIII. Inverno IX. Cambbio di Stagione X. Primavera XI. Primavera XII. Primavera |
|---|---|
|
Duration
34:20 |
|
|
Commissioning Year
2021 |
|
|
Premiere
July 2, 2021 Du Vert a L'Infini Music Festival, Franche Comte, France |
|
|
Recording
July 2, 2021 Du Vert a L'Infini Music Festival, Franche Comte, France |
Artists
-
Richard Danielpour Composition
Richard Danielpour has been commissioned by many international artists, including soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Anthony McGill, and Gary Graffman; the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets; and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He has also received commissions from the New York City, Pacific Northwest, and Nashville ballets; the Philadelphia and Stuttgart Radio Symphony orchestras; the Mariinsky and Vienna chamber orchestras; the New York Philharmonic; Orchestre National de France; the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, among others.
Dr. Danielpour has received a Grammy Award, two Rockefeller Foundation grants, the Berlin Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Joseph H. Bearns Prize in Music from Columbia University.
Recent works include Carnival of the Ancients for piano and orchestra, String Quartet No. 8, and The Passion of Yeshua, a passion oratorio in Hebrew and English.
Dr. Danielpour has recorded for the Naxos and Sony Classical labels. His music is published by Lean Kat Music and Associated Music Publishers.
Dr. Danielpour served on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music from 1993 to 2017, and has served as professor of music at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA since 2017. He joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1997.
-
Maria Eleonora Caminada Soprano
-
Davide Cocito Cello
-
Alfonso Alberti Piano
100 for 100
100 for 100 celebrates contemporary music with a showcase of bold, original compositions and fresh perspectives.
