In this latest installment of recordings focusing on thechoral traditions of different country's choral musictraditions launched last year by the Vokalensemble Stuttgartdes SWR, we now arrive in sunny Italy, a country said tohave no native choral tradition. Giuseppe Verdi of course used choirs in his operas, butapart from that there are only a few choral works that havesustained any place in the repertoire, some of the finest ofwhich are presented here. With the beginning of the 20th century, however, oneencounters composer's that are less well known, but whomhave certainly composed some very exciting music for choir,including Pizzetti, Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Nono and GoffredoPetrassi. They all offer poignant, poetic, funny, mysterious, ironicchoral works that are original and always interesting in theirstructure. They show an Italy away from the operatic bel canto, butcertainly not lacking in beautiful melodies.