Vito Palumbo is an award-winning, critically acclaimed Italian composer. He has had pieces performed all over the world, notably by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester, the Gävle Symfoniorkester, the Athenäum-Quartett Berliner Philharmoniker, the RAI Symphony Orchestra, the Oradea State Philharmony, Norrbotten NEO, AuditivVokal Dresden and Camerata Bern with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as a soloist.
Universal Edition Composer
“This new BIS release is an unexpected joy.…Palumbo’s music is shockingly good. He’s figured out how to update traditional musical charms using every tool in the box and create something pleasingly new. The Concerto Barocco is a stunner, like a Bach harpsichord concerto updated to the present. It never stops moving and throwing delicious harmonic twists at you. And it manages to use the harpsichord for timbral beauty and energy without being coy, unlike a composer such as Poulenc. The centuries seem to float in and out of the music here like holograms: Scarlatti, Bach, Vivaldi. Then all sorts of slithery quarter-tone mystery intrudes. But there is always a warm, jovial, unifying quality to the music. You could substitute it for the Britten Simple Symphony or the Tippett Double Concerto or one of the Bloch concerto grossos and not drive away your audience… Palumbo makes sure inner voices are always moving forward in his textures. And if a cadenza by itself might bore, the composer sees to it other instruments intrude upon it and keep things moving… BIS has done its usual sonic wonders. Hats off to Palumbo!” Fanfare Magazine (July/Aug 2018)
“Vito Palumbo lånar i Concerto barocco (2006) musikaliska motiv hämtade ur Vivaldis, J. S. Bachs och D. Scarlattis vokabulär, men han gör det med glimten i ögat. Harmonik och rytm tar plötsligt helt andra vägar än de tre föregångarna skulle ha kunnat ana. Verket andas en ungdomlig lätthet som är mycket tilltalande. Palumbos stort upplagda cellokonsert (2007) är allvarligt hållen. Då är blockflöjtskonserten (2013) ett betydligt mer personligt intressant verk. Den blandar övertygande symfonisk bredd – imponerande balanserat av tonsättaren med tanke på soloinstrumentets begränsade dynamik – och meditativ introspektion. Verkets titel Eagle syftar visserligen på ett nytt slags blockflöjt, men det är inte orimligt att uppfatta solostämman som en rovfågel som svävar ovanför instrumentlandskapets klanger. Höjdpunkt Den charmiga och humorfyllda finalen i cembalokonserten.” OPUS MAGASINET OM KLASSISK MUSIK & OPERA
"Three original and striking concerti, very different from one another yet all pointing to the versatility and accessibility of the composer."
"[The Recorder Concerto] in one continuous span of half an hour which clearly subdivides into three sections, the piece is expressive and dramatic, employing more unorthodox orchestral timbres and the strong tone of the 'Eagle' recorder - a new instrument with the sound of a recorder but at least the projecting power of a flute - to illustrate a rather apocalyptic narrative, not the kind of thing one usually associates with the recorder! - with a bitter, tumultuous first movement, a desolate, lyrical central section and the finale an unstable, unsettling and hyperactive progression leading inexorably to a shattering conclusion." Records International
“...the Recorder Concerto is the most interesting piece here... There is some meat here for Jaime Martín’s Gävle Symfoniorkester.. That is one example of musical material proving as strong and/or interesting as the textures in which it has been clothed, and not having been cherry-picked from music history.” Gramophone Magazine
“Vito Palumbo is a very young and active composer working in the symphonic genre. Jaime Martin leads the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in performing Palumbo's concertos for recorder, cello, and harpsichord. Palumbo's innovative and unique musical voice is beautifully highlighted in his genius ability to combine Baroque-era instrumentation with contemporary atonal compositional techniques.” ProStudioMasters review
“La musique elle-même se saisit de toutes les possibilités, joue avec les équilibres, et se déroule en toute beauté moderne. Vito Palumbo, un nom à garder à l’esprit.” © SM/Qobuz
“…Doch gefällt das Œuvre Palumbos durch Temperament und Klangfarbe, und die Produktion als ganzes durch die enorme Länge von über 83 Minuten.” Klassik Heute
“The Recorder Concerto written for a more powerful version of the instrument, it combines a quirky lyricism, often redolent of Messiaen’s birdcall inspiration, with strength. Unlike Messiaen, however, we end not with a transfiguration but with visions of an impending apocalypse.” MusicWeb International