ENGLISH (Italian follows)
Italian piano duo Sollini-Barbatano has just released their latest album on the record label Da Vinci Classics, which explores the music of the Romantic composer Franz Liszt. The album includes two significant pieces by Liszt: the Concerto Pathétique and the Dante Symphony, which demonstrate the composer's personal sonata form.
In their rendition of the Dante Symphony, the duo performs a monumental version of Liszt's work, which combines the anguish of Dante's Inferno with the serenity of Purgatory and the purity of the Magnificat of the Virgin, sung by a female choir.
The Concerto Pathétique, on the other hand, is a reworking of Liszt's original solo piano piece. The Sollini-Barbatano duo performs the original version, which includes the cadenza written by Liszt himself, as opposed to the more commonly heard version arranged by Hans von Bülow.
Having established their reputation through prestigious solo and chamber music activities, the Sollini-Barbatano duo is considered one of the most highly-regarded Italian piano duos on the international stage. They have performed at major festivals and venues, including the Grosse Saal at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Filharmonia in Krakow, the Smetana Hall in Prague, the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Sanat Merkezi Theatre in Izmir, the Manoel Theatre in Malta, the Solti Hall at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Saint Petersburg Palaces Festival, the Schouwburg Festival in Jakarta, the International Music Festival in Santorini, the Kursaal in Bad Wildbad, the Interfest in Bitola, and the Kamerfest in Pristina.
The duo has also collaborated with major orchestras and recorded numerous times for Vatican Radio and RAI Radiotre. Their most significant recordings include the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach's concertos for two pianos and orchestra, performed with the OCM conducted by maestro Francesco D'Avalos, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Concerto for Three Pianos and Orchestra, K. 242, performed with the Orchestra I Solisti Veneti conducted by Claudio Scimone.
The Sollini-Barbatano duo is also the conductor of ARMONIE DELLA SERA - international concert series, of which Marco Sollini is the creator and artistic director and Salvatore Barbatano is the artistic coordinator.