Teresa Procaccini - Chamber Music

Teresa Procaccini

Chamber Music II

Quartetto
for strings op. 45 (1969) - 8'13" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 600 Kb

Sonatina
for piano n. 2 op. 46 (1970) - 6'31" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 600 Kb

Canciones
for soprano, oboe, bassoon and piano op. 60 (1972) - 7'30" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 630 Kb

Cinque pezzi incaici
for guitar op. 71 (1975) - 12'41" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 600 Kb

Sonata
for bassoon and piano op. 32 (1968) - 11'05" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 630 Kb

Sonatina
for cello op. 28 (1965) - 7'35" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 630 Kb

Andante e Rondò
for solo flute op. 54 (1971) - 5'05" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 650 Kb

Sonata
for viola and piano op. 43 (1969) - 14'44" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 600 Kb

Lied
for oboe and piano op. 84 (1978) - 2'52" - [Score available]

Demo .mp3 - 30 sec. - 600 Kb

Quatuor de Geneve:
Régis Plantevin, violin
Mireille Mercanton, violin
André Vauquet, viola
François Courvoisier, cello

Margherita Traversa, piano

Georgeta Stoleriu, soprano
Dorin Gliga, oboe
Pavel Ionescu, bassoon
Mihai Ungureanu, piano

Carlo Ambrosio, guitar

Mario Centurione, cello

Elena Cecconi, flute

Wim Janssen, viola
Maria Grazia Bertocchi, piano

Edipan Edition
CD PAN 3071 - price 15.00 Euro -

Teresa Procaccini

CD Info

Fifth of the 8 CD dedicated to my symphonic, sacred and chamber music released by the Edi-Pan record company, this CD contains 9 chamber compositions of various types written from 1965 to 1978. For their presentation I will use, at time, the opinions given by noted musicologists.
Cesare Casellato says:
'Teresa Procaccini occupies an emergent position in the circle of the contemporary ita-lian composers, for the vast amount and the multiform aspect of her production, in addition to the continuity and the systematic nature of working, projected in the different directions of the musical life. Her numerous compositions, with a considerable disco-graphy, appear in the catalogs of publishers from Italy, France and United States, documenting a not occasional circulation that broadly crosses the national confines. (North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and so on). Since 1955, in a space of more than forty years of creativity, Teresa Procaccini has produced operas, ballets, symphonic and chamber music, works for didactic use, scene music, revisions of ancient music.
Her activity has known only an interlude, from 1961 to 1965, that can be considered a pause of reflection, of afterthought and search. Until present time, that legitimates the poetic validity of the activity pursued by the musician, according to the canons of the daily acting of big masters past and present, her energy perseveres unchanged and her enthusiasm is the usual one, beyond changing styles and techniques that have marked the history of the musical language in the last decades. Teresa Procaccini has never attended summer courses at Darmstadt, nor has she taken part in their disputes and ideology, she has not experienced any of their so called "dramatic ambiguity" choosing an isolated position, may be uncomfortable, but very productive in her case as her work has been recognized at national and international level.
In her works, from a side she reveals herself available to risk the new, from the other she seeks coherence and respect of relationship with preceding generations, avoiding the impersonal uniformity which a lot of today's production is relegated to. Faint influences, leading especially to Strawinski and Bartok, are sincerely declared, but the constant aspiration to an autonomous expression allowed the composer to form a language that avoids generic experimentalism or expected "provocation" together with the obvious repetition of dated forms. The discursive clarity, often supported by an elaborate musical syntax, and the lyricism, not rarely interrupted by a wit characterized by joky tones, are evident constants of expression. Listening to these 9 compositions included in the CD, that is meaningful but necessarily limited, it is possible to usefully approach the musical experience of Teresa Procaccini whose number of works is actually about 150."

About the two following works the musicologist Pietro Acquafredda says:
'The QUARTET for strings op. 45 (1969) is one of the most interesting and inspired compositions of Teresa Procaccini's chamber music.The 1st movement allegro vivace and the 3rd allegro giusto, are distinguished by their vivacity of the rhythms and the linearity of the melody, that imposes itself authoritatively above the dense harmonic fabric. Themes, passing from an instrument to the other like a river in flood that flows fast, create a sonorous band of great awesomeness, interrupted by the 2nd movement moderato, that is mysterious, intimate and meditative and creates a peaceful moment between the two impetuous and overpowering allegro.

The SONATINA n. 2 for piano op. 46 (1970) is, in its structure, nearer to the ancient music "da sonare" for keyboard instruments, than not to the classical sonata form: it is part of the bright "clarte" that it is characteristic of Procaccini, because directly descending from her being. The 1st movement allegro scorrevole presents a series of sections played as an arpeggio for the right hand that returns in each section always changing, in contrast-relationship with the arpeggio for the left hand which has wider range. The descending phrase that closes the 1st movement of the left hand, becomes the melodic cell on which is based the whole execution of the 2nd movement andantino mesto that, with his relaxed and elegiac cantabile, contrastes the incessant beating of the final presto, built on the same melodic cell proposed for the left hand, while the right performs a theme in semiquavers."

The opinion ofRenato Chiesa on the following compositions:
"CANCIONES for soprano, oboe, bassoon and piano op. 60 (1972), is another of the works in which the voice is used like a vocalise. This composition was initially thought for the clarinet instead of the oboe (op. 53); here We have the version with the oboe. The composition is divided in two movements andante mesto and andantino sereno: the first is all a play of lines, sighs, small tensions, with continuous dynamic facets, within a chromatic compass; the second is more fluent but still presents small intervals, which are joined by the voice with frequent use of portamento. As a whole the composition distinguishes itself for the timbre refinements.

Inspired by the guitarist Alirio Diaz to whom they are dedicated, the CINQUE PEZZI INCAICI (The Five Inca Pieces) for guitar op. 71 (1975) do not include real Inca music but use the five-tone scale tipical of the andean musical culture, conforming to its spirit. Framed, at the beginning and at the end, by a suggestive theme, each piece has atitle that specifies and individualizes it. Unusual is the forth piece, YARAVI, an ancient and cheerful Peruvian dance, still present in the popular repertoire.

In the SONATA for bassoon and piano op. 32 (1968) prevails a mysterious, at times dark, character influenced by a certain manner to interpret the instrument, especially in the two initial movements. The allegretto develops in a fluent dimension, while the andante doloroso, with his recurrent use of dotted notes, appears like a threnody, also if the bassoon flows in a succession of acute notes. The presto comes from a totally different atmosphere; here we find again the festive, objective and classically clean character already noticed in other Procaccini's works.

The SONATINA for solo cello op. 28 was composed some years earlier, in 1965. The 1st movement is a free improvisation which alternates various themes, putting in prominence the technical and expressive possibilities of the instrument. The 2nd movement represents a elegiac moment of great intensity, in which melody has an absolute predominance. It is contrasted to the final allegro characterized by an incessant plan of semiquavers, almostperpetuum mobile, that closes the composition with bright virtuosity.

In the ANDANTE AND RONDO for solo flute op. 54 (1971) it is taken into consideration the ancient history of the instrument, rather than its present interpretation which assign it deaf, hoarse, croaking sounds, sobbings, or makes it to suggest the ear acrobatic swirls. Here instead the sound is full, velvety, sometimes melancholy, at times relaxed and cheerful. The impossibility of the chant is never contemplated.

The SONATA for viola and piano op. 43 (1969) is a piece conceived and realized through its three movements arioso appassionato, andantino mesto and prestissimo. The first is certainly of great expressive intensity, in a free form but within precise structural boundaries; the second indulges a bit in old style and offers clever contrapuntal solutions; the third is an example, much more brilliant than the previous allegro, of vitality and energy with spaces left also to the virtuosity of the viola, calculating everything within a spontaneous rondo structure.

At 1978 belongs the LIED for oboe and piano op. 84. It is a composition in only one movement allegretto ansioso, misterioso which presents an oriental charm also for the insisted presence of excess second that flows in a chromatic reality, rich of tones and concludes in an unusual way, "like an echo", on the piano's clusters".
Teresa Procaccini

Teresa Procaccini is the composer of a vast production (about 200 works), including operas, ballets, symphonic pieces, chamber works, band and symphonic band works, teaching works, which have been performed both in Italy and abroad.
After having been awarded her diploma in piano and organ (with Fernando Germani) and in composition (with Virgilio Mortari), in 1971 and 1972 she directed the Foggia Conservatory and up to 2001 she hasa been teacher of Composition at the “Santa Cecilia” Conservatory in Rome.
She has won national and international competitions and has held specialisation courses in composition at the Festival of Città di Castello, at the Respighi Academy in Assisi, at the Internazionale Meisterkursen in Duren (Germany) and the Frentana Music Summer in Lanciano.
;Her works have been published by Sonzogno, Zanibon, Edipan, Carisch, Bongiovanni, Curci, Leduc, Seesaw, Rugginenti, Scomegna, Pizzicato Helvetia, Berbén, Wicky, Carrara.
She has produced a remarkable quantity of music for children (short teaching operas, musical fables with reciting voice, works for boys’ Choir and piano, many pieces for young instrumentalists (strings, winds and percussions) and teaching books with tapes) published by Armando and Gulliver.
She has composed sound tracks for theatrical works and for cartoons for RAI television.
Almost all her works has been recorded by Edipan, Bongiovanni, Edizioni Paoline, Electrecord of Bucarest, Rugginenti, Grammophon AB BIS of Stockholm, Nuova Era Records, Scomegna, Altarus and Crystal Records (U.S.A.), Lira Classica M.A.P.
She has also been successful in organising concerts and since 1972 is Artistic Director of the Foggia Association of “Friends of Music” and consultant of many Association in Italy.
She conceived the touring review of “Ladies Composer of Past and Present”.
She is often guest of Juries (as President or member) of various national and international prizes and as speaker of musicology Conferences.