Riccardo Chailly - Verdi Discoveries (2003) CD-Rip

It's always exciting to see such high profile premieres of new works, with the record company pulling out the full-on starpower of the likes of Riccardo Chailly and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. It's even more fun when the works are by a high-stature composer whose oeuvre has been thoroughly examined from all angles and whose recent output has been disappointingly limited over recent years, largely the result of his being, well, dead for over a century. Largely the result of the work of musicologists Dino Rizzo and Pietro Spada, Verdi Discoveries has added four unusual new works to the largely operatic Verdi discography: two concertino-like sets of variations for solo instrument and orchestra, a spurious (that doesn't sound good... let's try "attributed") prelude to the opera Otello, and a zippy little Sinfonia that sounds an awful lot like Rossini, the giant on whose shoulders Verdi would come to stand, but in whose shadow he was most certainly laboring.

The works all date from the years immediately following Verdi's student days, when the twenty-something composer was trying, with little success, to prove himself as a composer to be published. They are, however, more than sophomore attempts. At over twenty minutes, the Variations for Piano and Orchestra on a tune called "Caro Suono Lusinghiero" are the main course. They're spunky, even a little churlish, gutsily handled by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Another set of variations, this time for oboe and orchestra on a contemporary tune of equal desuetude show a little more humor. Except for the oboist, Alessandro Potenza, that is, who is put through six minutes of scales and arabesques that can only be described as frenetic, but fun. The album is rounded out with a sprinkling of other curiosities from the mature Verdi, handsomely crafted by Chailly. Did Giovanni miss his calling? Most certainly not. If he had written nothing but Traviata and Rigoletto that would have been enough to justify his place in music history. But is it a kick to hear a couple of musical meanderings? You bet. -- David Simmons