Hyperion Records

Venezia e Napoli is usually waved away as a rather insignificant group of encore pieces, but while they are obviously lighter fare, they merit high praise for their sheer beauty and ingenuity. Each piece is based on what was familiar material in the streets of Italy at the time of their conception.

Gondoliera is described by Liszt in the score as La biondina in gondoletta—Canzone di Cavaliere Peruchini (Beethoven’s setting of it, WoO157/12, for voice and piano trio just describes it as a Venetian folk-song, and Peruchini remains elusive) and he treats it in a much gentler way than in the earlier version with a particularly fine verse with tremolo accompaniment; the tremolo guides a very dark musing upon Rossini’s Canzone del Gondoliere—‘Nessùn maggior dolore’ (Otello) which itself recalls Dante’s Inferno (‘There is no greater sorrow than to remember past happiness in time of misery’); and the Tarantella—incorporating themes by Guillaume Louis Cottrau (1797–1847)—emerges from the depths, much more subtle than in its previous, primary-coloured garb, but ultimately triumphantly boisterous.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1997