Coro di Voci Bianche dell'Arcum - Luci e suoni dell'anima, Vol. 1 (2019)

Between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, a remarkable body of music destined for children's voices is being formed: outside and inside the theater for music, the white voice can finally enjoy that recognition of identity. The interest of the great composers belonging to the modern season will give substance and nourishment to that identity, contributing to the constitution of a finally emancipated repertoire. Paolo Lucci, founder and director of the Arcum Chorus in Rome, has always fulfilled the task of promoting the knowledge of this repertoire. The collection of music that appears in these two CDs was born precisely from research and exploration, conducted this time on European repertoires.
The chronological arrangement of the authors (from Schubert to Stravinsky, Vol. 1; from Hindemith to Davies Vol. 2) facilitates the perception of a constantly evolving discourse.

Absolute star of the romantic age, Franz Schubert can boast an uncommon predilection for vocality, his inimitable ability to give voice to any text, poetic or not, through his music also emerges in the choice of very disparate pieces that appear here in succession: see the canon for single voices for the hymn to the beauty of May, the luminous piano anchoring in support of the intonation of Der Psalm 23, and again the sunny voices in Die Nacht in Lucci's transcription of the original version for male voices. To close the Schubertian chapter the Deutsche Messe. Eight movements for these simple songs for the accompaniment of wind instruments, timpani and organ. The Crux! Hymne des marins belongs to the production of Franz Liszt linked to the years of Italian living and more intense religious devotion in the shadow of Roman sacredness and the cult of ancient polyphony. The juxtaposition to the listist piece of the two Wagnerian works has its raison d'être in the friendly and professional closeness between the two almost contemporary composers: the Kinder-Katechismus zu Kosel's Geburstag is a real rarity, a domestic and family song, a Christmas wish for the children of Cosima Liszt, whose name is spelled out in the tail of the piece. There is only one considered exception in the non-Italian geography of belonging of authors and passages present in this valuable collection: it is the late Verdi page, the famous Laudi to the Virgin Mary. The nineteenth-century season closes with the other crucial station of romantic vocalism and Brahms is the lighthouse of the other half of the century, to direct and promote choral vocalism. With the Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons, or rather with the only page dedicated to the children's voices of Claude Debussy, opens the twentieth-century review and not by chance in the sad atmosphere of the first world war and with the intonation of Christmas without smiles and homeless children of war orphans, just driven by the anxious wandering of the piano accompaniment. Fancy, based on text from Shakespeare's Mercante di Venezia, is the only page of Zoltán Kodály to testify here the dedication of a lifetime and the exquisite skill in the treatment of the choral voice, by the famous Hungarian master. We could not miss a document of the twentieth century giant, Igor Stravinskij, who, exiled in Switzerland in the years of the First World War, wrote dedicating to his children two delicious cycles of melodies accompanied on the piano. This time it is precisely the textual suggestion, the simplicity and the imaginative flair of the texts chosen by Stravinsky to happily guide the young singers in the intonation of these melodies belonging to the early twentieth century.