Clementoni: Opere per organo & Missa Jubilaris

This world premiere recording production was the rediscovery of composer Arturo Clementoni, active in Ascoli Piceno from the first two decades of the 20th century as chapel master and organist. The picture that emerges from the documentation of his activities is that of a person who lived and worked fully in the rich, lively musical humus of his land, and was loved and respected by his fellow citizens, but also esteemed by the great musical personalities of his time. For his activity as a composer he received a great number of awards, for instance the first prize for his Missa Jubilaris at the composition contest proclaimed in 1950 (declared Holy Year by Pope Pius xii) by Carrara of Bergamo, the most important Italian publisher of that period in the field of sacred and liturgical music. The life and work of Arturo Clementoni fit perfectly in the artistic and cultural current of the Cecilian Movement, whose ideals and rules were officially sanctioned by Pope Pius x’s Motu proprio “Inter plurimas pastoralis officii sollicitudines”, issued on 22 November 1903. The symphonic chorale Cristo risusciti undoubtedly is a peak among Clementoni’s works that are known so far, and because of its quality and breadth deserves to be seriously rediscovered in the context of the great organ literature of the twentieth century in Europe. The Missa Jubilaris is worthy of a special mention because of the spirituality with which it is imbued and because it achieves a successful mixture of an evocation of Gregorian atmospheres, a solid polyphonic framework, and bursts of symphonic-style élan.