The unifying thread that binds these three works is not simply the composers’ Italian birth, but their early musical maturity. Petrassi became, with Dallapiccola, one of his country’s most outstanding 20th-century musicians. His broadly neo-Classical Preludio, Aria e Finale, composed when he was twenty-nine, embraces a wide range of emotions, from intense lyricism to desolate introspection. Francesco Cilea’s exuberant and melodic Cello Sonata is the work of a talented 22-year-old on the brink of establishing his reputation in the operatic world, while the very approachable Sonata of the gifted Sandro Fuga is suffused with elegance and serenity.
