Morricone: Piano Music (Decca)

This CD includes all the (currently available) original piano pieces that Ennio Morricone composed, and nine transcriptions of his movie music that he himself made. In determining the listening order of the pieces, I preferred to alternate his movie music with the others. In this way, it will be possible to notice some unexpectedly shared features between pieces that are apparently very distant from each other, to emphasize how all of Morricone's music derives from the same matrix. The piano was always an especially dear instrument to Morricone, as confirmed by the frequent piano pieces in his soundtracks. Morricone often played his music at the piano for the directors and producers he collaborated with.

This recording is a promise I made personally to Maestro Morricone. Ever since I discovered his non-movie music (“absolute” music, as he liked to call it), I have thought it imperative to circulate it, in both the concert hall and the recording studio, and that it was a great pity that it was not yet sufficiently known. I had been discussing with him the idea of ​​recording his piano music since 2011, when he dedicated the Studio 4 bis per piano-pedaliera to me. So I am really happy now to finally be able to bring this project to fruition. For which I would like to thank the Morricone family for their inestimable help and support in locating the scores. I hope it will be evident from listening to this CD how Ennio Morricone’s unique voice sounds unmistakably throughout all his music. Each time I play his piano works, I realize how his profound lyricism and the intensity of his musical thinking are a great gift to all of us.

Roberto Prosseda

(from CD liner notes)

TRACKLIST 

1. La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano (The Legendof 1900)

2. Invenzione **

3. Indagine su un cittadino  al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation on a citizen above suspicion)

4. Canone 

5. Le due stagioni della vita 

6. Ricercare  

7. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso 

8. Primo Studio per il piano-forte  

9. Cane Bianco  

10. Secondo Studio per il piano-forte 

11. Il potere degli angeli 

12. Terzo Studio per il piano-forte 

13. Metti, una sera a cena  (Love Circle)

14. Quarto Studio per il piano-forte  

15. Il deserto dei tartari  

16. Rag in frantumi   

17. Quinto Studio (Catalogo)  

18. Gott mit Uns 

19. Studio 4 bis per il piano-pedaliera*  

* World Premiere Recording

** First CD Recording 

Roberto Prosseda, piano

Recorded at Fazioli Concert Hall (Sacile, Italy), March 30-31, April 27-28, 2021