Carlo Grante

Giovanni Mazzocchin was born in Bassano del Grappa (VI) in 1994. He was admitted at the 'Pedrollo' Conservatory in Vicenza in 2007, where he studied with Marco Tezza. He graduated in five years with the highest marks, praise and special mention, playing a program which included the J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations and the Beethoven' most difficult sonata, the "Hammerklavier". In the meantime he also attended masterclasses with Carlo Grante, Filippo Gamba, Massimiliano Ferrati, Alexander Madzar and Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, who particularly appreciated the his performance of Chopin and Liszt. Starting 2015 he recorded: Beethoven's Late Piano Sonatas, Opus 101 & 106 + Opus 109, 110, 111 (OnClassical OC145CSET), Diabelli Variations Op. 120 + Bagatelles Op. 126 (OnClassical OC17072c); J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (OnClassical OC17042b). Giovanni is currently attending the faculty of Computer Science at the University of Padova, where he completed his three-year degree.

Any discussion about the most difficult works in the piano repertoire is bound to include Leopold Godowsky's 53 Studies on Chopin's Etudes. To be sure, the pure, unadulterated Chopin Etudes lie within reach of most virtuosos. But one cursory glance at a page from a Godowsky/Chopin concoction might easily intimidate even the most accomplished pianist of the human species. Godowsky operates under the basic premise that whatever elaborate passagework Chopin assigned to the right hand can and should be played by the left. On top of that, he smothers the right hand with lily-gilding countermelodies and serpentine filigree.

A major new, native recording of a sparkling operatic double-bill. After Amelia goes to the ball was staged in 1937 at the Metropolitan Opera with acclaim, Gian Carlo Menotti became hot property. Two further radio operas were comparative failures but it was with The Medium that Menotti really hit his stride. A tragedy in two acts for five singers, a dance-mime role and a chamber orchestra of 14 players, Menotti’s opera is both dramatically astute in the Puccini tradition and composed with an acute ear for mood and mystery: the score, often quite dissonant, conveys an eerie, morbid atmosphere. According to the composer, ‘The Medium is actually a play of ideas. It describes the tragedy of a woman caught between two worlds, a world of reality which she cannot wholly comprehend, and a supernatural world in which she cannot believe.’