Elisa Rumici: Gilda Ruta: Piano Works
Da Vinci Classics

In liner notes for Italian pianist Elisa Rumici's Gilda Ruta portrait, Chiara Bertoglio concentrates more on biographical details of the composer than the works presented. The move isn't unwelcome or inappropriate, however, given that Ruta's name might be unfamiliar to many a listener. Bertoglio provides a grounding context that provides a helpful way into the music and also facilitates an enhanced appreciation for what Rumici's doing on the release. Some of those bio details are worth repeating before turning to the music proper.

Naples-born in 1853, Ruta was the daughter of two musicians, her mother a singer and father a pianist and composer, and was thus primed for a career in music. By the age of sixteen, she was already impressing as a pianist, but her potential as a composer was being recognized too. After marrying two years later and bearing a son and daughter, she retreated from the music scene, her withdrawal from the stage a reflection of the times. Widowhood came quickly, however, which impelled her to resume her musical activities at the age of twenty-seven to support herself and her children. Concerts were delivered in Italy but also outside the country, with works by Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert, Schumann, and others performed; she also presented her own compositions, which were positively received. Works for solo piano were written but also chamber pieces and art songs.

A move to the United States in 1894 proved pivotal for her and the children, and a year later she presented a programme of her works at Madison Square Garden. Ruta established herself further when she created the musical institutions the Ruta Musical Society and the Ruta Music School, and her accomplishments were lauded in obituaries after her 1932 passing in New York. While her name gradually faded from view in her home country, the publication in 2019 of a book about her has sparked a revival of interest, which Rumici has bolstered with her own project.

The pianist, who acquired a Master degree in Piano Performance and Master degree in Piano Pedagogy at the Hochschule für Musik Basel, is well-equipped to present Ruta's music. Armed with a broad repertoire and strong appetite for contemporary music, Rumici has been awarded twenty-seven first prizes in national and international competitions and received multiple scholarships. Currently pursuing her doctorate at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, she's an avid researcher who promotes gender inclusivity in classical music and is a co-organizer of the Feminale festival in Basel. In releasing an album entirely devoted to works by Ruta, she has done a great service on behalf of the composer and given listeners an opportunity to hear a representative sampling of her output.

Eleven standalone pieces appear, with the multi-part Suite a canoni at their centre. Interestingly, all but one of the pieces were written between 1884 and 1889, the set-concluding Allegro agitato di concerto (1895) the outlier. Tonal contrasts differentiate the works, but all are marked by clarity of expression, strong melodies, and concision. These satisfyingly structured pieces are sometimes descriptively titled, such that Scherzo, Bolero, and Notturno, to name three, announce beforehand their tonal character. The works are, put simply, rich in musicality.

Many pieces exemplify those aforementioned qualities. Mesta serenata entices with its lilting melancholia and lyrical melodicism, for example, while the subsequent Prima Elegia exudes a doleful quality too but also conveys it with dignity and dramatic flourishes. As haunting as Mesta serenata is, however, it's bettered in that department by the bewitching Notturno. A rather Liszt-like quality gives impetus to the ultra-dramatic Allegro appassionato; a Beethoven character, on the other hand, seems to seep into the declamatory Allegro agitato di concerto. Suite a canoni squeezes six breezy movements into its ten minutes-plus frame, beginning with a chiming, chords-heavy “Preludio” and following it with a hymnal “Arietta,” rhapsodic “Sarabanda,” jubilant “Minuetto,” and effervescent “Giga.” Elsewhere, Primavera and Capriccio brillante dance with Mozartian joy, and Scherzo barrels forth with florid insistence.

Filippo Filippi, a music critic of the late nineteenth century, described Ruta's music as technically sound yet also accessible and playable, and the evidence at hand supports that. While the material isn't without its technical demands (see the trilling cascades that introduce Primavera), no one will mistake Ruta's writing for Michael Finnissy's; it's possible to picture an advanced conservatory student tackling the Suite a canoni for an examination recital, for instance. The artistry comes, as Rumici so excellently shows us, in the refinement and immediacy of its expression. Her treatment of Ruta's material amplifies its accessibility, such that one could imagine listeners hearing it for the first time immediately warming to it and grasping its intent with no difficulty whatsoever.

April 2026