Sandro R. Mueller

The Harmonia Nova series welcomes young artists singled out for their exceptional talents. For a pianist abundantly supplied with such gifts, look no further than the Tbilisi-born Sandro Nebieridze, finalist at the inaugural China International Music Competition and winner of multiple international prizes. For his first recording, the eighteen-year-old has chosen an ambitious program of piano works which scale the heights of virtuosity (such as the Prokofiev Sonata) and are brimming with poetry. An album that demonstrates astonishing artistry for a young musician of his years.

The oratorio La decollazione di S. Giovanni Battista by Antonio Maria Bononcini is a worthy representative of the little-known tradition of oratorios in the Italian language composed at the Hapsburg court, a tradition which was quite widespread between the second half of the seventeenth and the first three decades of the eighteenth centuries. This genre, now considered to be an appendix of the opera, played instead a significant role in the religious-musical events of the imperial court, where Italian culture in general and the language itself represented more than mere aesthetic models.

A pianist’s dream: a rare and precious testament of a great pianist’s vision (Busoni) of another’s (Liszt) work. Very popular repertoire in extremely rare versions. Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was one of the most gifted pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as being a composer of considerable importance and vision. A child prodigy, he debuted at the age of 12, being quickly marked out as a piano virtuoso unlike any other. His reputation for many years rested on his remarkable transcriptions of J.S Bach, which tended to overshadow both his original compositions and his other transcriptions.