Maria Bagala

Song of a Life Vol.4 Maria Bagala

Based on 33 years of scholarship and promotion by the Istituto Nazionale Tostiano and a lifetime of studies on the part of this volume lives up to it's predecessors in bringing to wider attention the work of a born melodist, at home in the English and French tongues as well as his native Italian, and one who brought the genre of salon song to a peak of perfection. The greatest singers of each era from Caruso to Pavarotti and Bartoli have always reserved a corner of their repertoire for Tosti, but he has hardly ever been given the spotlight, perhaps nervous of the sheer popular appeal of songs such as 'A vucchella' which opens album 2 of the present set. The chronological approach to his work taken by this project proves that he was certainly not confined within the limited universe of love requited, rejected, desired, misunderstood, suffered or unspoken. The songs in this fourth volume cover the years 1905 to his death in 1916 having become a British subject in 1906, knighted in 1908, and retired to Italy in 1912. Despite their relative youth, the singers chosen to record this project are all Tosti experts, having won various editions of Ortona's international voice competition devoted to the interpretation of drawing-room songs and ballads. Other actors of lesser skill almost always seem to be portraying the same person. Much the same thing can happen with music, but not here, thanks to the idiomatic command and fresh, unselfconscious artistry of the singers in responding to the wide range of poets set by Tosti, including Gabriele d'Annunzio, Thomas Carlyle and Frederic Weatherly.