Ensemble Blumina

Grigori (Grigory) Samuilovich Frid was a distinguished member of the generation of composers born in Russia just before the Revolution of 1917. Frid’s significant corpus of piano music can trace its lineage to Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky, and his skill in conjuring entire worlds in music can be heard throughout this recording. His albums of Children’s Pieces are rich in gems that evoke poetic nostalgia, seasonal moods and witty pictorial descriptions that genuinely transcend their didactic purpose. In these world première recordings, distinguished pianist Elisaveta Blumina reveals Frid’s extraordinary character – a gifted composer, pedagogue and artist who lived his life to the full, despite many personal setbacks and difficulties.

Few news are available about Antonio Nola. Even research manuals and encyclopedic dictionaries make no mention of the author.According to the news reported by Hanns-Berthold Dietz, Antonio Nola was born in 1642 from Tommaso Nola and Laura Rossa and at the age of 10, in 1652, he became a pupil of Giovanni Salvatore at the Conservatorio dei Turchini in Naples. In 1674 he was regularly in the service of the Oratory of the Gerolamini, an institution in which he remained for a long time, copying much sacred music for the needs of the Oratory and collaborating with many musicians in the service of that institution, from Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Scipione Dentice (nephew of Fabrizio Dentice), Giovanni Maria Sabino and the M. of the royal chapel Filippo Coppola and Erasmo di Bartolo ("Padre Raimo").

André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s three-act opera Guillaume Tell was first performed in 1791 at the Salle Favart of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris. The opera deals with the Swiss fight for freedom in the 14th century against the domination of the Habsburgs. The story of Wilhelm Tell is well-known.