Bruno Segre

Bruno Sanfilippo is a classically trained musician and composer. He graduated from the Galvani Conservatory, Buenos Aires, with a degree in musical composition (piano). His focus alternates between the exploration of minimalist piano concepts and electro-acoustic music. He is obsessed with the search for new and unique qualities in music, the magical and the deep. In dreams, there’s no imagined thing that’s too absurd, too strange, and Bruno Sanfilippo’s music comes from that inexhaustible and shameless source.

Donizetti’s fiftieth opera, Marino Faliero, was first performed in Paris on 12 March 1835 with a cast comprising four of the finest singers of the period before premiering in London a few weeks later. Although both of these premieres were overshadowed by Bellini’s I Puritani, Marino Faliero subsequently enjoyed a long and successful run of international performances throughout the 19th Century before disappearing from the stage until its modern revival in 1966. Set in Venice in 1355, it remains a major work of Italian Romanticism, sentimental, martial, full of conspiratorial adventure and culminating with the execution of the leading character.

Sonate a Quattro are the brilliant compositions from Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, written during the summer of 1804 at the young age of 12. These works, at the time, were commonly performed by wind quartet and it wasn’t until 1954 when the original manuscripts were discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. showing their original arrangement for string quartet.

Cecilia Bartoli both thrills the senses and touches the heart in Rossini's sparkling comedy, her feisty Cinderella combining rebelliousness with pathos, vocal beauty with stunning virtuosity. She and a star cast of Italian principals captivate the Houston audience in this exuberant Bologna production, recorded live in November 1995.

One of the most 'hidden' and sought after releases of all times is finally getting a due repress: a work of epic proportions, Ennio Morricone's and Bruno Nicolai's "Dimensioni Sonore" has been eluding collectors and affectionate listeners for about 50 years.

Franz Krommer (alias Frantisek Kramár) was born in Moravia three years after Mozart and died in Vienna four years after Beethoven, setting him firmly within the Classical period. His substantial output included a good deal of orchestral and chamber music, as well as works for the piano and the Church. In his time, his string quartets were highly regarded, and he was considered by some as a rival to Beethoven. The modern age has tended to regard him as a petit maître whose music is fluent and skilful without being especially memorable.

“This is something of a find – a production produced in Milan's television studios in 1973 that does more than justice to Giordano's verismo work about personal conflicts at the time of the French Revolution. It's directed, with considerable imagination, by the Czech Vaclav Kaslik, at the top of his profession in the 70s. In realistic period sets he unerringly creates the milieu of a degenerate aristocracy in Act 1 and of the raw mob-rule of the Revolution in the succeeding acts. The only drawback is the poor lip-synch. Conductor Bruno Bartoletti makes certain we're unaware of the score's weaker moments and releases all the romantic passion in Giordano's highly charged writing for his principals.

In his autobiography Opera Years Rolf Liebermann wrote: “Of all the film versions of operas in which I was involved, my favourite has always been Wozzeck, mainly because the interpreters and location were so convincingly authentic.” And truly, this film adoption of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, recorded in 1970, fascinated with its constantly developing tension from the first tone to the last accord. Indeed the cast could not has been any better than in this production: Toni Blankenheim as Wozzeck and Sena Jurinac as Marie. Clearly and precisely in picture and speech, this film can truly be considered a classic and is now available on DVD for the first time.