Simone Nocchi - Complete Music for Piano Duo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Duo Cristofori - Complete Music for Two Fortepianos [COMPACT DISCS] Digipack Packaging date 03/12/2013

The pieces presented here are ascribed to a composer whose life appears to be both mysterious and adventurous quite little of Agostino Tinazzoli is known, including biographical details such as his occupations, teachers and places of residence (except for limited, incomplete information). However, some unusual facts preserved through his music illustrate that this composer had no ordinary life. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians informs us that Agostino Tinazzoli was born in Bologna during the second half of the 17th century, quite possibly around 1660. Most of the works attributed to Tinazzoli concern sacred music, including various oratorios (such as Il sacrifizio di Gefte), and masses (such as an incomplete Requiem). This collection of solo keyboard music comes from two manuscripts currently preserved in Münster and Bologna. The former contains all the pieces included in the two CDs, while the latter includes Toccata No.18 and a larger version of the Toccata No.17 including all the movements performed (the Münster manuscript contains only the first movement). Four of the pieces of the collection are specified for the organ, and they are intended to be used during the Mass there are two Offertorios, one Elevazione and a Post Agnus, and all of them are titled Sonata. Tinazzoli assigns the terms Sonata, Toccata, and Capriccio to these pieces (except for the Passagallo), but there is seemingly no criteria for the choice of name. The collection employs a wide range of styles and formal structures there are concerto-like pieces (Toccata No.17, Sonata no.4), as well as fugato pieces (Sonata No.11), and dance movements (for example, the Sarabanda in Sonata No.4, or the concluding Minuetto in Capriccio No.3). While we are unable to determine a precise timeframe of composition, it seems that even if the pieces may have been composed in disparate years Tinazzo

Almost all good Romantic-era composers knew how to have fun at the piano, all the more so with a friend. Schumann and Brahms wrote some of their most unbuttoned music in this genre, and their example was followed by Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900). From a generation after Brahms, he venerated the older man, and having maintained a relationship - somewhat strained on Brahms's part - since their first meeting, he came in 1868 to marry Elisabeth von Stockhausen, who herself had been a pupil and close friend of Brahms, who would often write them letters together (and then more private ones to Elisabeth). Von Herzogenberg left grand themes and forms to his many works in other genres such as quartet and oratorio. There are five variation sets here - one on a theme by Brahms, the others of his own invention - and several collections of dances, equally cheerful and often whimsical in disposition music to be enjoyed in the playing as much as the listening. There are two collections of Allotria - from the Greek, meaning strange or foreign things - each containing three pieces, and the second set here receives it's first recording. Von Herzogenberg's handling of harmony is at it's most ingenious here, and his northern-accented melodies are especially original. The sisters Nadia and Angela Tirino have played together since childhood, and they share that intimate understanding, musical instinct and equality of partnership common to first-class sibling piano-duets. Having both studied at the conservatoire in Florence, they live and work there, teaching and performing, but also joining the jury of distinguished piano competitions around the world. This von Herzogenberg is their first internationally available album.