Aldo Ortado

Ferruccio Busoni composed a significant number of works for two pianos throughout his life. While Bach’s pervasive influence is already evident in some of his early compositions including the Preludio e Fuga and Capriccio, it reaches its most complex and glorious expression in the definitive 1921 version of his Fantasia contrappuntistica. In the case of Schumann’s Op. 134 for piano and orchestra, Busoni simply reduced the orchestral part for a second piano. However, his skill as a master transcriber and composer is revealed in his brilliant arrangements of Mozart’s works, which also highlight the subtlety and originality of his style.

Aldo Romano: "In 1959, the "Living Theater", co-directed by Judith Malina and Julian Beck, created the Jack Gelber play "The Connection". This is a play within a play; the producer Jim Dunn, and the writer Jaybird, want to show the unseen of the life of the addicts to hard drugs. They have one thing in common: the expectation of "the connection", we would say the dealer today, which should give them the powder. This is a camera in a slum rented by a crazy man, Leach. There's four or five clueless in need and a jazz quartet that plays waiting for their dealer "Cowboy".
The play, which will become a film directed by Shirley Clarke in 1961, will be performed in New York, London, Los Angeles, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, the Living Theater and a jazz quartet led by pianist Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean on alto sax…

Maria Stuarda is one third of the so-called "three queen" trilogy that defined much of the career of Beverly Sills (along with Lucia, the three Hoffmann heroines, and Manon) in the early 1970s. It was quite an undertaking, and each–Stuarda, Anna Bolena, and Roberto Devereux–was recorded by the since-disapppeared ABC Audio Treasury Series. For reasons opera lovers have been wondering about for years, the recordings went out of print pretty quickly; but now, handsomely remastered, they are making their first appearance on CD, both individually and as a three-opera set. Stuarda also has been recorded by Joan Sutherland and Janet Baker (in a version Donizetti prepared for the lower-voiced Maria Malibran), and there are at least three "private" sets I know of with Montserrat Caballé in the title role.

Anyone with even a passing interest in Italian progressive rock is unlikely to be unaware of Aldo Tagliapietra. Born in Murano, Rome, in 1945 for over forty years (1966 - 2009 with a break 82 - 86) he fronted one of the most successful Italian prog bands, Le Orme. Originally playing guitar as well as providing his distinctive melancholic falsetto vocal style he also turned to playing bass for the classic trio line-up of keyboard driven symphonic prog band of the seventies. When Le Orme temporarily split in 1982 he took the opportunity to release his first solo album "…Nella Notte" in 1984.
In 1986 Le Orme reformed putting his solo career virtually on hold, though he released a live album "Radio Londra" in 1992 and in 2008 "Il Viaggio", an album recorded ten years previously based on his experiences in India and featuring sitar, which he'd taken up in 1994, as the main instrument…

This CD is going to provide unexpected delight for lovers of the Late-Romantics. Victor de Sabata is remembered as a remarkably dynamic conductor who made some stunning records with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca in the 1940s and 50s. It is not so well known that he was also a composer. Here are three ravishing symphonic poems from the early 1920s, substantial in length and gorgeously scored for an enormous orchestra. Everybody who responds to Respighi, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Strauss and Busoni is going to love this disc. The conductor, Aldo Ceccato, is de Sabata's son-in-law and has long championed these scores around the world. Here he directs de Sabata's 'own' orchestra, the LPO, in their first commercial recordings. Sonically, this disc is state-of-the-art.

Anyone with even a passing interest in Italian progressive rock is unlikely to be unaware of Aldo Tagliapietra. Born in Murano, Rome, in 1945 for over forty years (1966-2009 with a break 82-86) he fronted one of the most successful Italian prog bands, Le Orme. Originally playing guitar as well as providing his distinctive melancholic falsetto vocal style he also turned to playing bass for the classic trio line-up of keyboard driven symphonic prog band of the seventies.
When Le Orme temporarily split in 1982 he took the opportunity to release his first solo album "…Nella Notte" in 1984.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Die Schachtel is proud to present "Punctum Contra Punctum", a deluxe compact disc box dedicated to Aldo Clementi, one of the most important figures of Italian music of the 20th Century. Born in Sicily in 1925, he studied piano and later composition under the guidance of teachers such as Goffredo Petrassi and Bruno Maderna, who also introduced him to electronic music at the RAI Studio of Phonology in Milan.