Massi i Stefano

This full-length album from Italian jazz group Stefano Bollani Trio features jazz piano renditions of your favorite American standards.
Italy's Stefano Bollani is a globally renowned jazz, classical, and pop pianist and composer celebrated as much for his entertaining stage demeanor as his dazzling technical prowess. He is also an esteemed broadcaster and writer. Bollani has recorded dozens of albums as a leader in many configurations, from piano solo to big band. Mentored by Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava, he has cyclically collaborated with the elder musician since appearing on 1999's Rava Plays Rava.

An outstanding Italian musican, Stefano Demicheli has been René Jacobs' closest assistant for many years and with him has performed on Europe's main opera stages. A distinguished harpsichordist, who studied with Ottavio Dantone, he is now the leader of the Dolce & Tempesta ensemble, consisting of the best soloists from the European period instrument ensembles.This new recording on Fuga Libera gives us the world première of the three Notturni composed c.1740 by Porpora, Handel's strongest rival in London, for the All Souls Day in Naples. Carried by one of the most powerfully expressive texts in the Christian canon, this is an opportunity to hear two stunning soloists: Monica Piccinini and Romina Basso and also the Stagione Armonica of Padova.

Giovanni Benedetto Platti left his home country Italy and settled in the wealthy environment of the Würzburg court, where he became an esteemed soloist, singer and composer. Platti’s music, firmly rooted in the Italian Baroque style of Corelli and Vivaldi, shows an exceptional depth of feeling and a “personal touch”, quite unlike some of the thirteen‐to‐the‐dozen works of some of his contemporaries.

Works by the famous theorbo virtuoso Kapsberger have often been recorded, but little space has so far been given to repertoire drawn directly from manuscript sources. Kapsberger maintained a privileged relationship with his city of birth throughout his life. The Venice of Willaert, Gabrieli and Monteverdi, however, is not just a magnificent past: it is still alive today and continues its musical tradition in the so-called Second Venetian School of Malipiero, Maderna, Nono and whose most recent protagonist is Claudio Ambrosini (1948-), winner of the Prix de Rome and the Leone d'Oro at the Venice Biennale, whose works have already been recorded, among others, on the Kairos and Stradivarius labels. Kapsberger, Secret Pages reveals an astonishing instrumental challenge between lesser-known works by Kapsberger in which we admire ideas and creative intuition, and Ambrosini's unpublished works, which contain equal amount of creativity and unexpected possibilities for the instrument.

This rich set of music by J.S. Bach (or connected to him by attribution or publication) and transcribed for the guitar provides a stunning example of the versatility of the composer’s music, the unquestionable genius of which renders it universally successful on any instrument with polyphonic capabilities (solo string instruments included).