FUGA: Piano Sonatas No. 1*, 2+ & 3# / *Giacomo Fuga, +Carlotta Fuga, #Claudio Voghera, pianists / Naxos 8.579110
Sandro Fuga (1906-1994) is not a name that most classical listeners will have heard of. A member of the artistic Venetian Nono family, which in addition to modern composer Luigi also included the sculptor Urbano (Luigi Nono’s uncle), he studied composition with two completely opposite musicians, Alfano and Ghedini, but the music on this CD clearly shows that he leaned more towards modern than Romantic-Verismo music (although he later remembered Alfano more as a “non-conformist”). He also became friends with conductor Fernando Previtali and critic-musicologist Andrea Della Corte, whose judgment he valued very highly.
Although the liner notes do not say whether or not pianists Giacomo and Carlotta Fuga are Sando’s children, I would assume they are. Judging by their photos, they seem to be the right age (in the 60s or 70s) to have been; but the notes do confirm that they are brother and sister, and frequently perform together as the Fugo Duo. The third pianist on this recording, Claudio Voghera, studied with Luciano Giarbella, one of the elder Fuga’s pupils.
From the first notes of Fuga’s first piano sonata, you realize that you’re in an entirely different sound-world from both Alfano and Ghedini. Fuga wrote with a great many tone clusters, a method that even some of the most advanced Italian composers avoided; and yet, at the same time, he wrote melodic top lines that, divorced from the tonally thick harmony, were quite melodic. Even in his melodies, however, Fuga avoided the easy type of songful tunes that other Italian composers of the period were writing. Interestingly, having reviewed this disc immediately after listening to Stravinsky’s piano music, I hear similarities between the two despite their different styles. Both composers enjoyed creating atmospheric music at the piano, and in fact, after one gets through the opening section of the first movement, there are some harmonies in the middle section (around the four-minute mark) that resemble what Stravinsky wrote in Firebird and Apollon musagète.
But make no mistake: beyond my analysis of his musical style, Fuga was an excellent composer. His music has direction and focus, unlike so much of the “modern” music I hear nowadays. It goes somewhere, it has excellent structure, and it clearly has something to say. In the latter third of the first movement, Fuga switches tempo from “Moderato” to “Tormentoso,” bringing a more fiery and tempestuous vibe into the piece. The only thing I didn’t care for in this movement was the very end, where he suddenly (and without preparation) jumps into a tonal chord for the ending. Still, he continues his fascinating harmonic explorations in the slow second movement although here the harmony is much closer to conventional tonality (the influence of Alfano?) while still leaning towards “rootless” chords and even a bit of French impressionism. The third movement includes stylistic elements from each of the first two, wedded to a brisk rhythm that almost sounds like a moto perpetuo but for a few pauses here and there, while the fourth and last movement takes an opposite route, exploring shifting harmonies via slow, almost elegiac musical figures, here with several pauses in the ongoing exposition.
The second sonata is, if anything, even more aggressive in its first movement than the first, eventually using a strong march beat to propel the choppy theme, played by the right hand in a series of chords against a relatively sparse, single-note bass line. And yet, towards the end of this movement, Fuga suddenly relents his thick modern harmonies for a surprisingly tonal, melodic theme that sounds very Italian indeed. The second movement is built around a repeated, downward-moving, single-note bass line of low D-Db-C-B, repeated over and over, while the right hand plays a slow, bitonal melodic line in the middle of the keyboard. Eventually the notes in the bass line change, but the same feeling of a funeral march persists despite occasional loud passages (from the right hand) which then recede in volume. Eventually, the right hand moves up an octave and begins playing a more melodic theme, then the descending chromatic bass line returns as Fuga develops his theme. A really fascinating piece, far different from the usual pastoral-sounding slow movements of sonatas. The third movement, “Allegro vivo e preciso,” is built around a sixteenth-note figure in the left hand which moves around as the right hand, again beginning in the middle of the keyboard, creates a complex theme.
Interestingly, the third sonata picks up where the second leaves off, using downward chromatics through rootless chords to create a quietly menacing mood, but even here Fuga eventually leans towards lyricism in his musical approach. One difference is in the second movement, where a brief opening “Lento” gives way to a medium fast fugue. Although divided into four movements, this sonata is even more sequential than the first two, which almost makes it sound like a one-movement sonata divided into four contrasting sections.
By and large, then, although Fuga’s sonatas (and movements therein) are individually interesting, listening to all three sonatas in sequence makes you realize that he was focused on creating complex figures within the same basic style. Rhythms and voicings are different, of course, but the basic approach remains the same. The listener to this CD is thus at a disadvantage in judging each sonata individually. Hearing them one at a time, as he wrote them, is very impressive indeed.
—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley
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