Cilea: Songs & Piano Music Lenny Lorenzani & David Boldrini

• Francesco Cilea (1866 - 1950): Romanza:
• 1Cilea: Romanza03:16
• Il mio canto:
• 2Cilea: Il mio canto02:29
• Alba novella:
• 3Cilea: Alba novella02:39
• Nel ridestarmi:
• 4Cilea: Nel ridestarmi02:22
• Serenata:
• 5Cilea: Serenata01:55
• Romanza (Pianoforte Solo):
• 6Cilea: Romanza (Pianoforte Solo)02:29
• Vita breve:
• 7Cilea: Vita breve02:55
• Ninna nanna popolare savoiarda:
• 8Cilea: Ninna nanna popolare savoiarda01:32
• Maria mare (arr. D. Boldrini):
• 9Cilea: Maria mare (arr. D. Boldrini)03:52
• Statuit di dominus:
• 10Cilea: Statuit di dominus00:48
• Badinage (Pianoforte Solo):
• 11Cilea: Badinage (Pianoforte Solo)01:56
• Au village (Pianoforte Solo):
• 12Cilea: Au village (Pianoforte Solo)01:38
• Ave Maria:
• 13Cilea: Ave Maria02:07
• Pensiero spagnolo (Pianoforte Solo):
• 14Cilea: Pensiero spagnolo (Pianoforte Solo)01:34
• Bionda larva:
• 15Cilea: Bionda larva03:22
• Ave Maria da Tilda (Arr. D. Boldrini):
• 16Cilea: Ave Maria da Tilda (Arr. D. Boldrini)03:42
• Agnus dei:
• 17Cilea: Agnus dei01:55
• Fuga sul tema 'Io son l'umile ancella' da Adriana Lecouvreur:
• 18Cilea: Fuga sul tema 'Io son l'umile ancella' da Adriana Lecouvreur02:16
• Total Runtime42:47

Info for Cilea: Songs & Piano Music

Over the course of a long but ultimately frustrated career as a late-Romantic lyric composer, Francesco Cilea ascribed to one credo above all: ‘Be Italian’. In L’Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur, above all, he created masterpieces of the new style of verismo which kept sung drama in Italian at the centre of wider notions of what opera means. Everything he wrote, from large-scale stage works, to chamber pieces to the salon songs and miniatures gathered here, expressed his quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy.

‘The real instrument of expression of the passions is the divine human voice,’ he once remarked, ‘with which no instrument can ever compete.’ Thus, in complement to his career as an operatic composer, he wrote a small but exquisite collection of songs gathered here by artists with considerable experience in the field of neglected Italian art-song. This collection opens with the charming Romanza which Cilea composed at the age of 17, evidently under the spell of Bellini’s Norma.

The more complex harmony of ‘Bionda larva’ from three years later mirrors Cilea’s development as a stage composer, about to launch his first opera, Gina. Every sung line here is calculated, as it was in Monteverdi’s day, to heighten an appreciation of the text, and the emotions underlying it, with a madrigalian illustration which always colours and never obscures the words. There are expressions of heightened erotic passion alongside simple religious devotion – a typically Italian paradox.

As interludes, David Boldrini plays four evocative miniatures, functioning essentially as songs without words. He and Lenny Lorenzani have made a previous collection of Cilea’s songs, but this new Brilliant Classics album was recorded in 2023 and features a different selection of repertoire.

Lenny Lorenzani, soprano
David Boldrini, piano

No biography found.

Booklet for Cilea: Songs & Piano Music