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Track(s) taken from CDA67850

Variations on Batti batti from Mozart's Don Giovanni, WO10

composer
1820/1

Howard Shelley (piano)
Recording details: October 2010
St Silas the Martyr, Kentish Town, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Annabel Connellan
Engineered by Ben Connellan
Release date: September 2011
Total duration: 6 minutes 33 seconds

Cover artwork: Classical Scene. Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765)
Roy Miles Gallery, 29 Bruton Steet, London W1 / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘This enticing seventh (and final) volume of Clementi's works for solo piano is a notable achievement on several levels. The same team … have combined to produce no fewer than 14 CDs of remarkably uniform quality, insight and interest in a mere 4 years … there are over 152 minutes of music on the present discs, much of it demanding. How Shelley manages to absorb it all and then convince you that he has been playing it all his life with his characteristic elegance and dexterity is a gift given to few. Such an eminent composer deserves no less’ (Gramophone)
The variations based on Zerlina’s little aria in Don Giovanni, ‘Batti batti, o bel Masetto’, WO10, first appeared in a collection of operatic arias transcribed for piano, ‘with an Introductory Movement to Each by the most Eminent authors’, put out by Clementi’s company. His own ‘introductory movement’ anticipates a flood of similar works by the piano virtuosi of the 1830s and 1840s: a florid, rhapsodic fantasy laced with tantalizing hints of the melody to come, which at last is presented in an effective piano transcription that preserves a good bit of the original orchestral accompaniment. This is essentially parlour music, the sort of thing advanced amateur pianists might play for friends at home.

from notes by Leon Plantinga © 2011

Les variations fondées sur la petite aria de Zerlina dans Don Giovanni, «Batti batti, o bel Masetto» WO10, parut d’abord dans un recueil d’arias opératiques transcrites pour piano, «with an Introductory Movement to Each by the most Eminent authors», publié par la compagnie de Clementi. Son propre «mouvement introductif» anticipe un flot d’œuvres similaires rédigées par les virtuoses du piano des années 1830 et 1840: c’est une fantaisie fioriturée, rhapsodique, additionnée d’alléchantes allusions à la mélodie à venir, laquelle est finalement exposée dans une efficace transcription pianistique préservant une large part de l’accompagnement orchestral originel. Voilà foncièrement une musique de salon, de celles que les bons pianistes amateurs pouvaient jouer chez eux, à leurs amis.

extrait des notes rédigées par Leon Plantinga © 2011
Français: Hypérion

Die Variationen über Zerlinas kleine Arie in Don Giovanni, „Batti batti, o bel Masetto“, WO10, erschien erstmals in einer Sammlung von Klavierbearbeitungen von Opernarien „mit einem einleitenden Satz zu jedem Werk von den eminentesten Verfassern“, die von Clementis Unternehmen veröffentlicht wurde. Sein eigener „einleitender Satz“ nimmt eine ganze Flut ähnlicher Werke der Klaviervirtuosen der 1830er und 1840er Jahre vorweg: eine blumige, rhapsodische Fantasie mit aufreizenden Hinweisen auf die bevorstehende Melodie, die schließlich als wirkungsvolle Klaviertranskription erscheint, in der die originale Orchesterbegleitung größtenteils erhalten ist. Hierbei handelt es sich im Wesentlichen um Salonmusik—die Art von Musik, die fortgeschrittene Laienpianisten etwa ihrem Freundeskreis zu Hause vorspielten.

aus dem Begleittext von Leon Plantinga © 2011
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

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