Lunchtime Concert - Between Dusk and Dawn: Italian Art Song at the Turn of the 20th Century

Overview

Intertwining music from the years preceding and following the turn of the 20th century, this recital weaves a portrait of the Italian Art Song as it negotiates the transition from the overwrought sentimentality of Italian Verismo to the evocative impressionism of early modernism. The programme seizes on the recurrent preoccupations of this repertoire, which returns to the atmospheric both in its poetic engagement with time and the weather and in its musical evocation of ambience. As atmospheric markers like rain, mist and snow scan the passage of the seasons, the individual songs move through the different parts of the day (night, morning, afternoon, twilight etc.) to bring the audience on a metaphorical journey that is simultaneously a journey across the span of a day, a journey across the span of a year, and a journey across the span of two centuries.

 

Performers

Ferdinando Cocco (Tenor) is a doctoral candidate at Cambridge University’s Centre for Film and Screen Studies. He began his musical training at an early age as a student of piano performance at the Conservatory of Music “Luigi Canepa” in Italy where he discovered and cultivated an interest in vocal and choral performance. Thanks to several musical scholarships, he has since been able to pursue further training alongside his non-musical studies. He is a choral scholar at Wolfson and is a member of both Wolfson Choir and Wolfson Chamber Singers. 

Peter Ng (Piano) is a Wolfson Masters student in Theoretical Physics, recently graduating from UCL with BSc Physics. He studied piano with May Tong since the age of four, before undergraduate studies in the UK. During his undergraduate years, he was an active member in UCL’s Chamber Music Club and performed both solo and chamber music in numerous concerts for the club, such as J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn Piano Trios in d minor. Peter is the 2024-25 Ian Cross Instrumental Scholarship at Wolfson and the accompanist for WolfSong.

 

Programme

Works by Respighi, Tosti, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Zandonai and Pizzetti

 

Details

This concert is open to the public and there is no need to book.

Admission is free with a cash retiring collection.

 

Access

This event will take place in the Lee Hall which has step-free access and an accessible toilet.

 

Music at Wolfson

Under the direction of Lyn Alcántara, Wolfson has a thriving Music Society and College Choir with a full programme of concerts - please sign up to their mailing list to keep up to date with their upcoming events.