Filarmonica Della Scala

Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly – La Scala: Overtures, Preludes & Intermezzi (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:31 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

After almost 40 years on Decca and over three million albums sold, in January 2017 Riccardo Chailly became music director of Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the world’s most iconic opera house. Milanese by birth, Chailly made his conducting debut at La Scala in 1978 as assistant to Claudio Abbado. Chailly’s father Luciano had also served as artistic director at La Scala, completing a family dynasty. This Filarmonica della Scala album is a sonically spectacular recording celebrating three centuries of music first performed at La Scala: overtures, preludes and intermezzi from Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and many others, all new to Chailly’s discography.

(more…)

Riccardo Chailly & Filarmonica della Scala – Respighi (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:19 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

Ottorino Respighi is often thought of as a four-hit wonder for the so-called “Roman Trilogy,” plus the Ancient Airs and Dances, orchestral renditions of Renaissance lute pieces, one suite of which is heard here. However, he wrote a good deal of other music, including nine operas that would bear performers’ exploration. The listener surely has plenty of strong recordings of The Pines of Rome and The Fountains of Rome to choose from, but there are several reasons to pick this 2020 release from Riccardo Chailly and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, a group with which Chailly has developed a close relationship. What makes the two tone poems enduringly listenable is their compactness and their quasi-symphonic structure, each with four movements falling into something like the traditional configuration, and with each of the movements unfolding according to an internal logic even as it memorably fills the programmatic bill. It’s this balance that Chailly gets: he never overdoes the pictorial aspect, but he delivers plenty of thrills to the listener as The Pines of Rome marches along the Via Appia, or the fountain of the Villa Medici quietly winds down the day. Further, Chailly offers a trio of early Respighi works that may be called rarities. From the first years of the 20th century, these pieces show Respighi’s melodic gift and the way he began to tailor it to larger structures, which is just the thing that makes the famous tone poems work. A delightful release that lives up to its single-name Respighi title, it gives a sense of the whole composer.

(more…)

Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly – The Fellini Album (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:48 minutes | 1,45 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

What a pleasure it is to return to Riccardo Chailly, at the head of the Filarmonica della Scala, with a collection on Rota (1911-1979) and more particularly his songs written for the great films of Fellini such as Amarcord, Huit et Demi, and La Dolce Vita! Before him, another Riccardo, Muti, had dedicated, in the 1990s, two albums with Sony Classical to the film scores of the Italian composer – with one collection on his non-cinematographic corpus. Whether Rota’s music was for cinema or the concert hall was of little importance as he rolled out, to the likes of Bernard Herrmann in the United States, a style that was true to himself where one feels his genius and prowess for evoking ambiance mixed with an incredible dexterity for the most diverse genres, as can be heard in Suite taken here from La Dolce Vita. The beginning (O Venezia, Venaga, Venusia) of the following Il Casanova di Federico Fellini, in which the chiming of the pendulum evokes the tragic destiny of the character and the harmonization of somber colors creates a sea-like atmosphere, remains without a doubt one of the most striking tracks on the album. This ambiance returns in the final part, this time all the more mind-blowing (The Dancing Doll). Often influences from the East, of Chostakovitch and Khachaturian (Il Duca di Württenberg), can be heard along with more meridian styles inherited from Italian symphonists from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. A passionate album not to be missed.  – Pierre-Yves Lascar

(more…)

Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly – Musa Italiana (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:00 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

Decca Classics is proud to present the new album from Riccardo Chailly and the Filarmonica Della Scala. Released on 20th May 2022, Musa Italiana celebrates the influence of the “Italian style” on three Austro-German composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn.

Recorded in Dolby Atmos in the auditorium of La Scala during the pandemic, this album utilizes the famous La Scala acoustic in a unique way. As Chailly explains,

(more…)