Alfano: Cello Sonata

Franco Alfano’s completion of Puccini’s opera Turandot has eclipsed his own reputation, although the profound ability of this talented composer is finally emerging into the light. The works on this disc display contrasting aspects of his musical personality. The large-scale Cello Sonata, with its echoes of Debussy and Ravel, grows from serene beginnings to turbulent intensity before subsiding into elegiac resignation. The more neoclassical Concerto, actually a piano trio, weaves hints of Renaissance polyphony with Basque and eastern European folk music into a shimmering fabric of virtuosity and lyricism.