Notices

In 2007, Artek released another all-Flagello CD (AR-0036-2). This recording features the first-ever performance, 50 years after it was composed, of Flagello’s Violin Concerto, newly orchestrated by the talented composer and arranger Anthony Sbordoni. The soloist is the internationally-renowned virtuoso Elmar Oliveira. Also featured on the disc are several short orchestral works, including haunting interludes from two of Flagello’s operas, Mirra and The Sisters; the gifted soprano Susan Gonzalez performs six short vocal works with orchestra, some with texts by the composer. The brilliant, Grammy Award-winning conductor John McLaughlin Williams leads the National Radio Orchestra of Ukraine. Critical response has been enthusiastic: “All of this music pulses with the composer’s trademark mix of muscular vitality, soaring melodies, sensuous color, and larger-than-life, operatic passions—defiant heroism, restless torment, fierce struggle, gloomy despair” (American Record Guide); “If one is inclined to romantic music that has an additional element of bite, Artek's Music by Nicolas Flagello will prove well worth your time” (AllMusicGuide); “The Violin Concerto … shares a point of view with the Barber concerto, although for my money, it's as good or maybe better than Barber's … [T]his is one of the great American (perhaps even Modern) concerti” (RealClassical.Net).

Early in 2008 Naxos released the first recording of a large orchestral work entitled, Missa Sinfonica (Naxos 8.559347). Its five movements correspond to the traditional sections of the Roman-Catholic Mass, but no chorus is used. The Missa Sinfonica is lush and romantic, expressing the composer's deep spirituality in his own personal musical language. On this recording, Flagello’s Missa Sinfonica is paired with the Symphony No. 5, "Missa sine Cantoribus super 'Salve Regina'" by American composer Arnold Rosner. Although Rosner's musical style does not resemble Flagello's, his symphony, composed in 1973, is based on virtually the identical structural concept, making the two works natural complements. Both performances are again under the direction of American conductor John McLaughlin Williams, who leads the National Radio Orchestra of Ukraine. 

March 15, 2008 will mark Nicolas Flagello’s 80th birthday. We are hoping that this milestone will be acknowledged by performers and radio stations throughout the country. Check your local listings.

On February 24, 2008, the Yale Recital Chorus performed The Passion of Martin Luther King in New Haven, CT. The conductor was Sooyeon Lee. And on March 29 and 30, 2008, this increasingly popular oratorio will be performed by the New York City Master Chorale, under the leadership of Thea Kano, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, on Columbus Avenue and 60th Street, in New York City. For further details, call (917) 326-1422.

On Sunday, April 27, 2008, at 3:00 PM, two of the foremost exponents of the music of Nicolas Flagello will be joining forces for a program devoted entirely to his music. The program will take place at the New Rochelle Public Library (call 914-632-7878 for details). Soprano Susan Gonzalez and pianist Tatjana Rankovich will perform a program of Flagello’s vocal music, including the dramatic scene Dante’s Farewell. (Ms. Gonzalez has performed this work many times; her passionate interpretation may be heard on Naxos 8.559296. Ms. Rankovich appears on that same CD in a thrilling performance of Flagello’s Piano Concerto No. 1.)

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Music Web - Reviews of Albany TROY 234 and NAXOS 8.5559148 by Rob Barnett.

Music Web - A TRIO OF CDs: THE MUSIC OF NICOLAS FLAGELLO --THE UNREGARDED AMERICAN ROMANTIC. (Artek AR-0002-2; Citadel CTD 88115;  Phoenix PHCD 125) reviewed by Rob Barnett.

Classical Net - Reviews of Vox Classics VOX 7521 and Albany Records TROY 234 by Steve Schwartz.

Classics Today.com - A review by David Hurwitz of Artek-0002-2.

Classical CD Review - Review of Naxos 8.559296

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"What Flagello brings to his art is, first of all, an absolute conviction in the primacy of emotion: the music throbs with vitality. It can be exciting or turbulent, sweetly melancholy or tragic -- but it is always openly and fiercely passionate. Flagello was also a fine craftsman, devoted to the principles of motive economy and classic balance, and his intense emotional expression is achieved with discipline and rigor. Moreover he could and did write old-fashioned tunes-- surging, expansive melodic arches, sparkling or pounding dances, sinuous or restlessly winding melodies that lodge in the memory. The resulting music is vehement and powerful, free of the posing or irony that often deface so-called 'new romanticism'." Mark Lehman, American Record Guide

"Flagello never forsook his ideals about late-Romantic style and strong sense of melody. Until his death two years ago, he continued to advocate those principles in vocal and instrumental works that only now are reaching a wider audience...Flagello worked within the same tonal framework as some of his contemporaries like Samuel Barber. They prevailed in their belief despite what was going on around them and...their aesthetic is finding a strong base of new adherents." Scranton (PA) Sunday Times

"[Flagello's music typically displays] a volubly anxious or ecstatically effusive lyricism cresting an omnipresent undertow of violence. This may grab you by the lapels...or draw you in seductively with a subtlety suggestive of late Fauré...; but the argument is always dynamic, even at its most relaxed, volatile, and often turbulent.... Here is something that resoundingly, unerringly, hit its goal. A standout. A landmark. An adventure. Enthusiastically recommended." Adrian Corleonis, Fanfare

"Mr. Flagello has the gift of writing gratefully for the voice, and his music has melodic sumptuousness. His orchestral texture is crystal-clear, and he knows how to underline dramatic events." John Gruen, New York Herald Tribune

"[Flagello] has shown an unmistakable and totally unconfused talent for the operatic theatre." Winthrop Sargeant, The New Yorker

"Nicolas Flagello is a major talent and one looks forward to hearing him and his symphony continue to give pleasure to audiences the way they did this night." Michael Mark, Music Journal

"[The concerto is] "passionate, dramatic, and unremittingly serious, . . . with easily detected shape and a clear sense of purpose, with surgingly lyric lines, dense textures, and churning rhythms, . . ." Herman Trotter, Buffalo News

"[The opera's] robust emotionalism is unflinching in its conviction, and its intensity is sustained by a sure sense of pacing, a natural flow of expressive melody integrated throughout the musical texture, and an ability to use voices, chorus, and orchestra to their maximum effect." Musical America

"[Credendum is] a very beautiful piece... so romantic and lush" Cho-Liang Lin, First Hearing

"...high verismo drama in a style not unlike that of Puccini and a mystery akin to that of Bartók. Flagello depicted this entirely tonal work with a wide range of emotions -- conflict, love, agitation and pain..absolutely superb by any possible measure." Dwight Pounds, Owensboro (KY) Messenger-Inquirer

"[Flagello's musical language] rests on the use of chromaticism and vocal lines inspired by Romantic ideals inflected by 20th-century techniques. Flagello achieves impressive emotional impact, builds vivid musical climaxes and leaves a strong musical imprint." Francis Brancaleone, (NY) Journal News

"If this is not great music, we will gladly turn in our typewriter and quit." Enos Shupp, Jr., The New Records

"...marked by brooding despair and violent agitation, which find release in massive climaxes of shattering impact. Despite its emotional effusiveness, the music is closely argued and remarkably skillful and imaginative in its handling of subtle instrumental colours. Flagello's later compositions (post-1958) are highly chromatic and dissonant, while retaining the earlier propensity for heartfelt melody and harmonic richness, and showing a clear anchoring in tonality at structural peaks. The New Grove.

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