Frenanda Damiano

A debut album from a gifted young pianist, who has stylishly reimagined the world of the Venetian Baroque on a modern piano.

The present Reflections juxtapose four composers of the so-called First and Second Viennese Schools, who became world-famous through many things – except compositions for organ. Pier Damiano Peretti, organist and composer as well as professor of organ at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, conceives an organ program framed by the two Fantasies in F minor K. 594 and K. 608 “for a mechanical clockwork organ” by W. A. Mozart. In addition, there are arrangements for organ by Franz Schubert of the Fugue in E minor op. 152 (D 952), the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands op. 103 (D 940) and the Adagio in G major, D 178. The Six Little Piano Pieces op. 19 by Arnold Schönberg as well as the Variations for Piano op. 27 by Anton Webern are portraying the Second Viennese School. All arrangements were created by Peretti, who is performing on the Lenter organ of the Lutherische Stadtkirche Vienna.

The first volume in an adventurous new series juxtaposing the piano music of Shostakovich with his most talented pupils. As a teacher at the Moscow Conservatoire for many years, Shostakovich trained a generation of the Soviet Union’s most talented composers. He was renowned for a sharp ear and kindly criticism which immediately focused its attention on areas of weakness in a score without requiring that his pupils follow his own path. Indeed, all three of the younger composers here demonstrate the individuality of their own voice.