Ferrara: Fantasia Tragica - Notte di Tempesta - CD

ENGLISH

<p>Franco Ferrara's gifts were prodigious. Born in Palermo he was a fine pianist, an even better violinist, playing under Toscanini, and later a conductor whose public performances were curtailed by illness, but whose private classes were famous. His compositions have been overlooked. The <i>Fantasia tragica </i>is a &lsquo;symphonic homage' to Shostakovich, modelled on the third movement (&lsquo;<i>Eternal Memory</i>') of the Russian composer's <i>11th Symphony</i>. The youthful <i>Burlesca </i>attests to his high spirited and superbly realised string writing and shares something of a filmic heritage with <i>Notte di tempesta</i>, a late-Romantic score of fulsome accomplishment.</p>