by Kevin McLaughlin
For much of the nineteenth century, Italian music was synonymous with opera, thanks to composers like Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini. But around 1900, a younger generation looked beyond that artform, drawing inspiration from Italy’s instrumental traditions and the emerging sounds from France and Russia.
On October 10 at Murray Hill Galleries, Studio Espressivo’s “Secret Masterpieces” program highlighted composers associated with the Generazione dell’Ottanta (“Generation of the Eighties”), named for their birth years around 1880. The connections among the works were sometimes loose, and not all qualified as masterpieces, or even secrets. Still, the variety made for an engaging afternoon of discovery and rediscovery.