Here’s a really interesting rarity, a wonderfully sexy “symphonic poem” for tenor and orchestra set to a text by Alfred de Musset. Leoncavallo composed La nuit de Mai in 1886 during his stay in Paris, and it was premiered there the following year. A verse from Musset’s poem, a dialog between the poet and his music, heads each movement; the tenor takes on the role of the poet in five of the movements, while the remaining seven feature the orchestra alone. The style is clearly French late-Romantic, evocative of early Debussy, Chausson, or Massenet. French too is Leoncavallo’s excellent orchestration and sensuous feeling for atmosphere, critically important in what is, save for the lengthy central Allegro con fuoco, basically an exotic and languorous piece of writing.
The Orchestra Sinfonica di Savona may not be a major ensemble, but it plays the music quite well on the whole. I can imagine more bite in the few more agitated episodes, and perhaps greater richness from the strings here and there, but the music is so well written and conductor Paolo Vaglieri keeps the piece moving along so ably that its 42 minutes of mostly slow tempos rarely if ever feels long. Tenor Gustavo Porta isn’t anything special. I could readily imagine a more seductive, less strained voice in the vocal movements, but again, he’s certainly not bad and such is the interest of the music itself that we shouldn’t be too critical. With excellent recorded sound and despite the short playing time, this really is a significant work from a very unexpected source, and it’s well worth hearing.
