Nightingale, Malcolm {NKBH, HRP&P, F&S
Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:05:31 -0800
You may be interested to know that I purchased a new vocal score of I Rantzau in London (Chappells of Bond Street) about 4/5 years ago (I think - unfortunately I can't be very prescise about the date). It is published by Curci and has the text in Italian only. It is paper bound and looks like a modern reproduction of what was presumably the original edition. The score has a copyright date of 1975 and an address for Curci as 'Milano, Galleria del Corso, 4'. Curci have a website at http://www.edizionicurci.it/. On the back of the score is a sticker which states: 'Supplied by William Elkin Music Services, Station Road Industrial Estate, Salhouse, Norwich. Tel 01603 721302, Fax 01603 721801' so presumably they imported it to the UK from the publisher. They have a website at http://www.elkinmusic.co.uk/ which lists Edizioni Curci, Milano as one of the publishers for whom they are agents. Hope this helps. -----Original Message----- From: Erik Bruchez [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 11:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [mascagni-interest] Score Inquiry All, I have piano/text scores of Cavalleria Rusticana, L'amico Fritz, and I Rantzau. The text is in Italian, except for I Rantzau, which is in German - this may be the version you saw for rent! I also have a nice piano/vocal score of I Rantzau in Italian. This is what you are looking for! These must be all original editions, because I don't think I Rantzau has been republished since the 1890's. I guess your best bet is to find a copy of the original score. The piano/vocal score of Parisina was reprinted in 1974 by Curci in Milan. It is an impressive 328 page long score, which still falls short of the length of Le Maschere. It looks like the original editor was Sonzogno, but that somehow the ownership was transfered to Curci. Anecdotally, I recently got from a friend a great picture of Maestro Kees Bakels and the late Pr. Carlo Botteghi studying the orchestral score of Parisina. They also have the vocal score at hand. These scores definitely seem to be difficult to get by. One cannot stress enough how amazing a work Parisina is. It obviously went way over the heads of not only the audience, but also the leading musicians of the time. The music is of incredible beauty, but understanding the original text is essential to appreciate the work. In Parisina, words and music are molded together. During the composition, Mascagni not only had the beautiful original libretto from D'Annunzio, but he had D'Annunzio himself handy to read and explain the verses to him. This is narrated by Mascagni himself in an article written in late 1913, "Come è nata Parisina": http://www.mascagni.org/books/ The Montpellier Parisina does not lack qualities. In particular, Denia Mazzola's Parisina is very good and Enrique Diemecke is a very convincing conductor. It is also the first time that it is possible, on record, to really appreciate the quality of the orchestration. The 1914 excerpts were recorded with a reduced, sometimes sluggish orchestra, and the RAI version is monophonic and the sound is of bad quality. On the other hand, not only is Act IV missing entirely, but the cuts in the first three acts are huge. The a cappella chorus parts in Act I, the "Sequenza delle tre donzelle" accompanied with the organ, the entire battle scene, the end of Ugo's narration of the battle and the orchestral "Intermezzo" in Act II are all gone! -Erik John Mucci wrote: > I have been having the most difficult time finding vocal scores for some of > the less well-known Mascagni works. Thanks to Erik and his message about > SheetMusic, we have a good resource for some of them, but just try to find I > Rantzau or Parisina. > > Actually, The Bagaduce Music Lending Library in Maine > (http://www.bagaducemusic.org/) has a copy of I Rantzau for rent ($2 plus a > $10 fee for the year, allowing you to borrow from all their many thousands > of scores), and although it's a beautiful original 1893 edition--I am not > sure if they change the date with impressions--it is a piano/text score, one > of those volumes meant for the rehearsal pianist, not the singer or the > enthusiast. Nonetheless it's a fascinating thing to see, but I'd like to > find a vocal score somewhere. > > On abebooks.com there is a listing for Oper, "Die Rantzau", Oper von Pietro > Mascagni, 4 Szenen auf 1 Blatt, Hst. 1893, 32x22 - which might have the > vocal line, but in German! Having bought a copy of "Der Kleine Marat" under > the same auspices, I know it is almost as frustrating as the piano/text > score for an American. (The reason why it's so frustrating is that Sonzogno > printed exclusive German editions, as the language required almost entirely > different vocal lines in places, and would have been difficult to read with > the Italian laid in above or below it). > > And Parisina? I can't find hide nor hair of it anywhere in any language. > www.Sonzogno.it doesn't even list it (or I Rantzau) in its inventory on the > website. I am sure that if one approached Casa Musicale Sonzogno personally > one might obtain a copy of each, but it is still quite difficult to get hold > of. > > For operamusic subscribers, if you don't know Mascagni's Parisina, you > really should try to get hold of the Montpellier recording of it, even > though its last act is truncated. I am not sure that even the several > in-depth analyses of it have begun to scratch the surface of what it has to > offer; and when it was performed originally (from 1912 to into the 1930s) I > don't think the audience had a clue what was going on in it. -- Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] PLEASE NOTE: THE ABOVE MESSAGE WAS RECEIVED FROM THE INTERNET. On entering the GSI, this email was scanned for viruses by the Government Secure Intranet (GSI) virus scanning service supplied exclusively by Cable & Wireless in partnership with MessageLabs. GSI users see http://www.gsi.gov.uk/main/new2002notices.htm for further details. In case of problems, please call your organisational IT helpdesk. -- Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]