Armida Records 11-190626
artist: CANDIDA GUIDA alto | FRANCESCO ADDABBO piano
L’INFINITO – SONGS BY ONORIO ROCCA (1911 – 1974)
Onorio Gervasio Pietro Rocca
(Sant’Agnello, 16 May 1911 – 4 June 1974)
Onorio Gervasio Pietro Rocca was born on 16t May 1911 in Sant’Agnello, in the province of Naples, into a prestigious family. His father was a Count, Pietro Rocca, his mother Eleonora Crawford, daughter of the famous American novelist Francis Marion Crawford. The family lived in the splendid Villa Crawford, where we were able to record the works contained herein, all dating from the 1930s and 1940s.
From a very young age, Onorio showed a keen inclination for study and music. He studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music “San Pietro a Majella”, where he graduated with honours in 1938 under the guidance of Luigi Finizio (1878-1951). Finizio, a pupil of Florestano Rossomandi, was one of the leading figures of the great Neapolitan piano school, alongside Vincenzo Vitale.
For now, we know nothing else about Onorio Rocca, his school career and his early artistic successes. However, we do know that on 15 August 1948, he was ordained as a priest, becoming Don Onorio to everyone, and that he never abandoned music. He continued to compose and play the piano and organ for the young people of the oratory he attended, first as a layman and then as a priest.
Musical traits
Onorio Rocca composed music based on texts by Leopardi, Pascoli and D’Annunzio, unfortunately not all of which have survived intact. He also set to music verses by friends, including Pietro De Rosa, recognisable for his style and sensitivity, and composed music based on his own texts or those of his brother Leone Rocca, a Jesuit.
We have chosen to record here his surviving vocal chamber music.
Echoes of a salon-style vocal tradition, with references to the chamber romances of Tosti or Cilea, are mixed in these compositions, which are at times original, sometimes markedly operatic, and at other times deliberately light and carefree, revealing the soul of a multifaceted, cultured and refined composer. In several compositions, there is a tendency to enrich the tonal language with modal colours and unexpected modulations, as well as a preference for “soft” tonalities, rich in alterations and comfortable in the vocal texture. Overall, we are dealing with highly vocal writing in which the piano accompaniment, which is always of exquisite craftsmanship, presents many of the typical formulas of Italian chamber opera in its many variations. The original harmonic language and dramaturgical design give rise, especially in larger-scale lyrics such as A Silvia or L’infinito, to a surprising correspondence between music and poetry.
Here, the composer penetrates the significance of the poetic word and the various “affections” of Leopardi’s text with depth of insight, giving life to dramatic scenes chiselled with the skill of a sculptor.
Thus, amid fragmentary evidence and notes that resonate again after decades of silence, the figure of Don Onorio Rocca re-emerges today in all his grace: priest, poet, philosopher and musician of the soul, capable of transforming every sound into an act of love.
The Piano
The instrument used for this recording is a Bechstein piano dating back to 1895, played by the composer himself throughout his life. Rather well preserved and of fine and sturdy workmanship, this piano underwent an initial mechanical overhaul in the 1950s by the Curci company of Naples. The work carried out for this recording by Peppino Aiello of Piano di Sorrento involved various refinements to the mechanics and structure. The distinctive, adamantine sound of a period piano, on which the works recorded here were composed, undoubtedly adds value to the project of rediscovering and studying the figure of Don Onorio Rocca.
In the silence of the spacious terrace, only the sound of the sea can be heard, and peace descends like a veil over my eyes, intoxicated by the myriad colours of the Gulf of Naples. The ancient sound of the piano played by Francesco becomes one with my voice and my body lets itself be sung by the music of Don Onorio … to the sound of her, in the infinite silence, my heart breaks and tinges the face of the one who makes me fall in love and who inspires everything with a beautiful emerald green.
Villa Crawford 14.2.2026
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Recorded from 12 to 14 February 2026 at Villa Crawford, Sant’Agnello, Napoli (Italy)
Piano: Bechstein (1890) that belonged to Don Onorio
Sound Engineer and Recording Producer: Luca Ricci
Thank you to Emmanuel, Annamaria, Peppino and Peppe: your love resonated with us