Lovely, melodic, and ephemeral, these three concertos by German-Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari will charm listeners looking for twentieth century music that recalls with warm nostalgia the final years of the nineteenth century. Each concerto is in four movements and scored for different woodwind soloists plus a small orchestra. Both the delightful Idillio-Concertino for oboe and the sonorous Suite-Concertino for bassoon were premiered in 1933 while the wistfully tuneful Concertino for English Horn was posthumously premiered in 1955, seven years after the composer's death. All three are thoroughly Romantic in their arching melodies, chromatic harmonies, and freewheeling approach to form, and faintly neo-classical in their ebullient tone, buoyant rhythms, and ever-so-slightly ironic wit. Superbly played by Diego Dini-Ciacci on oboe and english horn and by Paolo Carlini on bassoon, and enthusiastically accompanied by the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto led by Zsolt Hamar, Wolf-Ferrrari's concertos are as appealing as cheese, apples, and wine in autumn. Recorded in Padua's Pollini Auditorium, the soloists here sound much too close while the orchestra sounds too far away. The result is an unrealistic and sometimes unpleasant sound.
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