Ioannis Fiore

After Concerto Ostinato, Ore Diciotto in Punto, Pianosequenza, Visioni, here is a new album by the Italian composer Francesco Di Fiore. Family Album is a solo piano project inspired by a real photo album, actually belonged to his family. 'The process of composing this work has been joyous but also painful. When you dig into your memories, wounds inevitably reopen, and the absence of the people who have been part of your life weighs heavily. The emotional part is constantly under stress. My hope is that all these emotions are perceptible in this very personal composition, that you will absorb them into your own consciousness, and that perhaps you will begin the process of scanning the memories that are uniquely your own.'

At around autumn 1809, the management of Vienna’s imperial Hofburg Theatre commissions Beethoven to compose the incidental music for Goethe’s play Egmont, which premiered in Mainz in 1789. The plot of this tragedy is very much in keeping with the patriotic trend: it is set in Brussels, which is threatened by Spanish troops, and focuses on resistance against oppression and foreign rule. The hero, Egmont, places too much trust in the common sense and discretion of those in power – and this is his tragic mistake. In good faith, he allows himself to be lured into a deadly trap by the sinister Duke Alba, to whom he even explains his ideals of freedom and just rule. His lover Klärchen fails to persuade the cowardly citizens of Brussels to take violent action to free him, and, in her desperation, she commits suicide. What remains is the vision of a future freedom and victory – one that appears to Egmont in the form of Klärchen as he awaits execution in his dungeon.