The Importance of Being Earnest

Composed in the spirit of Aldo Palazzeschi’s quote «Let me have my fun!», this chamber opera, with a libretto taken from Oscar Wilde's celebrated play, boasts numerous distinctive features. Written in just five months, despite being more than two and a half hours long, for an ensemble that is unique in operatic production, it surprises and delights from the first listen, thanks to a melodic fabric in which thematic materials of both cultured and popular origin – whose sources the composer indicates in the score – are artfully interwoven with unexpected and often humorous frequency. Whether a fragment or a full citation, each element is established as a leading motif along with Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s own themes in a continuous game of cross-references in which the satire of the Wilde’s play is conveyed through a witty mashup of musical ‘samples’ from different authors and contexts, all united by the same (re)creative intent. In this way, the composer’s divertissement thus becomes the listener’s.

This volume contains the piano reduction of the work edited by Giovanni Del Vecchio, who is also the author of the introductory text in which he analyzes the source materials and their use throughout the work.