Parisonatina al'Dodecafonia is a 1964 composition by Donald Martino for violoncello solo.

Background

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The work shows a relentless preference in exploring notes in a twelve-tone system. It also consistently approaches the structure and cellistic technique through an imaginative approach. The title is a wordplay on the name of virtuoso cellist Aldo Parisot for whom the piece was composed. His name appears embedded throughout in a short succession of notes producing a single impression that appears throughout the entire piece.[1]

It was written in four movements, though it was actually conceived in two parts of a two movement context. A performance takes about ten minutes.[1]

When Parisot premiered the work in 1966 at Tanglewood, the New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg, who was not normally in favour of 12-tone music, called it a "whizbang virtuoso piece in the modern idiom".[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b Fennelly, Brian (Autumn–Winter 1969). "Donald Martino Parisonatina al'Dodecafonia (1964)". Perspectives of New Music (review). 8 (1): 133–135. doi:10.2307/832129. JSTOR 832129.
  2. ^ Anthony Tommasini (January 1, 2019). "Aldo Parisot, Eminent Cello Teacher and Yale Fixture, Dies at 100". The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2024.

Further reading

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  • Hawkshaw, Susan (2018). "4. Extraordinary Performances: the Parisonatina and Others – The Alaska Trip: a Beaver Coat for the Cello". Aldo Parisot, The Cellist: The Importance of the Circle. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press. doi:10.1017/9781576473313. ISBN 978-1-57647-309-2.
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  • Video on YouTube, performed by Bryan Hayslett, November 2016, includes description