Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra & Arturo Tamayo - Petrassi: Concerti per orchestra (2005)

The "concerto for orchestra" -- a novelty in the 1930s -- became the form of choice for Goffredo Petrassi, partly because it allowed him greater formal liberties than the conventional symphony, but also because it emphasized counterpoint and instrumental interplay over developmental procedures. Inspired by Hindemith's Concerto, Op. 38, Petrassi composed his austere Concerto No. 1 (1933-1934) in a burst of enthusiasm for the "Back to Bach" movement; yet this work is an isolated example of Petrassi's neo-Classicism, not repeated in the series. With the Concerto No. 2 (1951), Petrassi began a serious exploration of the form's possibilities, and over the next six years wrote the Récréation concertante (third concerto), the Concertos No. 4 and No. 5, and the Invenzione concertante (Sixth Concerto), in a steady progression from modernism and structuralism to free avant-garde experimentation. Petrassi completed the cycle with the Concerto No. 7 (1961-1964) and No. 8 (1970-1972), two powerful works that seem especially attuned to the innovations of Varèse and Ligeti. Conductor Arturo Tamayo and the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra deliver Petrassi's works with understanding and apparent mastery of any technical difficulties, and have made this set an intelligible document of one composer's development in an extraordinary century of change. The sound quality is exceptional.