April 13, 2020. JoAnn Falletta has led the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for over 20 years. In that time, the orchestra has recorded most of classical music’s greatest hits. Its recent album, Forgotten Treasures, is brimming with music by composers who are not household names, but whose works are like newly discovered riches. And Falletta gives them their due.
First up is Intermezzo from Notre Dame, by composer, cellist, and conductor Franz Schmidt, who was a prodigy of the 19th century.
There is the Hungarian Folk Dance Suite of 20th century Hungarian composer Leo Weiner, a compatriot of Bartok and Kodaly.
Nineteenth-century Italian pianist and conductor Giuseppe Martucci’s Notturno and 20th century Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Rondo Veneziano bring both Italy’s sun and mysterious waters to musical life.
Rounding out the album is Russian composer Nikolay Tcherepnin’s 1895 work, La Princess Lointaine, a love story of a knight who dies in the arms of the woman he has adored from afar.
Falletta says, “None of our recordings could have been made without the dedication of the Philharmonic’s musicians. Their creativity and enormous imagination have roused sleeping beauties from the dusty pages of old manuscripts and cast them in living, vibrating, glorious sound.”
