Vittorio Giannini - Symphony No.3; Praeludium and Allegro; Fantasia

Vittorio GIANNINI (1903-1966)

Dedication Overture (1965) 

Fantasia (1963) 

Praeludium and Allegro (1958) 

Symphony No. 3 (1958) 

8 Variations and Fugue (1965) 

University of Houston Wind Ensemble

Tom Bennett

rec. Moores School of Music, University of Houston, 5-7 March 2004

In the USA in the 1950s and 1960s while academia signed up to dissonance and audience alienation, the wind-bands held true to melody and sometimes to heroic values. Giannini’s temperament and creative inclination  served this movement well.

 

The Dedication Overture romps through Tchaikovskian evocation, Hansonian grandeur and pre-echoes of the great John Williams cinema scores. Two years before that came his tragic Fantasia which demands a grown-up emotionalism. It is a splendid work in which Giannini turns to the darker realms and makes of them a Hansonian pilgrimage. The Praeludium and Allegro is at first broodingly intense and then whips and snaps in a Waltonian blaze. The final pages are torridly romantic - a tormented emotional climax. The Third Symphony is in four movements. It has the good heart and rejuvenating qualities of Randall Thompson's Second Symphony. The second movement is plaintive and outdoors in tone. A bubblingly Respighian Allegretto prepares the way for a joyful and largely unclouded finale. By contrast the Variations and Fugue is sombre and heavy with the tense and brooding atmosphere of the Praeludium and Allegro. It is however more obliquely expressed - perhaps picking up on a tinge from the dissonant hegemony. But it is only a tinge - no darker say than any part of Hanson's Sixth Symphony.

 

The Houston band give good sharp and soulful performances but I can imagine more brilliance from a band on the sort of crackerjack form to be found from the Eastman Wind Ensemble in its glory days with Frederick Fennell.