Riccardo Drigo: 'Serenade' (flute & piano). скачать в хорошем качестве

Riccardo Drigo: 'Serenade' (flute & piano).

   • willie-whistleblower   Riccardo Drigo's Serenade from 'Les Millions d'Arlequin', played here on accompanied flute. The marking is "Allegretto Mosso". Riccardo Eugenio Drigo (1846 - 1930) was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist. He is most noted for his long career as Director of Music of the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Drigo also served as Chef d'orchestre for Italian opera at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. During his career in Saint Petersburg, Drigo conducted the premieres and regular performances of nearly every ballet and Italian opera performed on the Tsarist stage. Drigo is equally noted for his original full-length compositions for the ballet and also for his adaptations of existing scores, such as his 1895 edition of Tchaikovsky's score for Swan Lake. Many pieces set to the music of Drigo are still performed today, and are considered keystones of the classical ballet repertory Drigo was born in Padua, Italy on 30 June 1846. His father Silvio Drigo was a barrister and his mother was active in politics. None of Drigo's family was musical, but at the age of five he began taking piano lessons from a family friend,. Drigo excelled quickly, and by his early teens he came to notice as a pianist. His father eventually allowed him to attend the prestigious Venice Conservatory, where he studied under a student of Donizetti. Drigo scored his first compositions in his early teens, (romances and waltzes). In 1862 he was allowed to perform some of his pieces with the local amateur orchestra in Padua. With this performance began the young Drigo's interest in conducting. Drigo obtained his first position as a rehearsal pianist and copyist at the Garibaldi Theatre, Padua in 1866. His first major opportunity as a theatrical conductor came in 1867 when the Theatre's kapellmeister fell ill on the eve of the premiere of a difficult opera and Drigo knew the score intimately. In 1878 during the opera season the director of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres, attended a performance of Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore' which Drigo conducted from memory, prompting the offer of a six-month contract to conduct the Saint Petersburg Imperial Italian Opera. Almost immediately after arriving in Saint Petersburg, Drigo was conducting the entire repertoire of the Imperial Italian Opera. He greatly impressed the management, conducting such works as Verdi's 'Aida' and 'Un Ballo in Maschera' from memory. It was customary in Imperial Russia for all theatrical performances to be recorded in detail by the press and Drigo's performances always earned him praise. In 1886, thanks to Imperial help, he became composer to the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet. In 1889, began his stay in the Saint Petersburg Grand Hotel which was to be his home for the next thirty years. At this time Drigo developed a close friendship with Tchaikovsky, who was composing the score of 'The Sleeping Beauty'. On the eve of the general rehearsal of the ballet Drigo fell ill, and asked Tchaikovsky to conduct the orchestra himself. To Drigo's astonishment Tchaikovsky declined and so Drigo, still ill, conducted. The shy and reserved Tchaikovsky was ever after grateful to Drigo for his exceptional conducting. Drigo eventually conducted nearly 300 performances of 'The Sleeping Beauty'. Two years later Drigo conducted the premiere of Tchaikovsky's next work, 'The Nutcracker'. By the time Drigo left Russia in 1919, the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres held many of the composer's own pieces. Drigo later commented in his memoirs on composing about 80 of them, and rarely receiving any payment. Drigo's ballet 'Les Millions d'Arlequin' premiered at the Imperial Theatre on 23 February 1900. The audience included the Emperor and Empress and the entire Imperial court. Within moments of the final curtain, the normally subdued audience erupted into thunderous applause. The composer received a tumultuous reception as he took his bow and was mobbed by several Grand Dukes who tripped over one another in their enthusiasm to congratulate him. In 1919 Drigo was finally repatriated to his native Italy after suffering many privations in WWI. He recalled in his memoirs the many cold evenings spent with his close friend Glazunov waiting for hours in bread lines and carrying their rations home through the snow on a sled . After the ballet 'La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon' was performed, the renowned Feodor Chaliapin read an emotional farewell speech in Italian and Russian. Allowed to take only 60 kilograms with him, Drigo left all of his belongings in Russia apart from a collection of his manuscript scores, which he used as a pillow during his two-month journey to Padua via Odessa and Constantinople. Drigo died on 1 October 1930 at the age of 84, in his birthplace, Padua.