Massimiliano Scatena - Roberto Laneri: Songs of Surrender, Music for (Mostly) Solo Piano (2025)

Tracklist

01. Anusathi's Minute Waltz
02. Variazioni su tema d'aria: No. 1, tema d’aria
03. Variazioni su tema d'aria: No. 2, Variazione 1. Canone a rovescio
04. Variazioni su tema d'aria: No. 3, Variazione 2. Maggiore
05. Imaginary Crossroads No. 2
06. Song of Surrender
07. Cechov 1
08. Cechov 2. Tema
09. Cechov 3. Variazione 1
10. Cechov 4. Variazione 2
11. In den Juli nächten
12. L'ouverture
13. Sonora Crossroads
14. Imaginary Crossroads n.1
15. Imaginary Crossroads n.2 - Sonora Crossroads

The music on this CD contains all of my music for solo piano, three pieces of which also appear in a version for piano and instruments.
The first music I listened to as a child was mostly piano music from the Romantic period (Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms), followed by jazz greats like Jelly Roll Morton and his “Spanish tinge”. To this day that kind of rich sonority remains the most satisfying writing for the piano in my mind’s ear, and perhaps that’s the reason why these pieces sound so different from most of my music or, for that matter, from most of contemporary music.
Needless to say, all the music in this CD is written, except for improvisations by Arrigo Cappelletti, Giancarlo Schiaffini and myself in the ensemble versions.

I want to thank Massimiliano Scatena for having worked hard and long to music which proved more difficult than I had imagined.

Anusathi’s Minute Waltz was written in 1972 as an exercise on the use of the German augmented sixth chord in a theory class at SUNYAB.
Variazioni su tema d’aria is a theme with very few variations.
In den Juli nächten is a notturno d’estate without anguish.
Imaginary Crossroads and Sonora Crossroads were written in California when I was a Ph.D. student in San Diego, which accounts for the Spanish feeling.
Song of Surrender, the title track, is an unashamed tribute to the golden age of the piano.
L’ouverture is built around a short phrase from one of Bach’s Orchestral Suites, declined with Spanish feeling.
Cechov groups various pieces written as incidental music to a theatre production.

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