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Artist: Michele Tozzetti
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Michele Tozzetti:

Niels Wilhelm Gade Piano Works

The name and personality of Niels Wilhelm Gade are well known among music specialists, but unfortunately largely ignored by the mainstream concert repertoire and its audiences. And this is an unfair and regrettable situation, since Gade is an important figure under both the historical and the artistic viewpoint.

Historically, he occupies a prime place in the so-called “music nationalism” of the nineteenth century and indeed can be considered as one of its founders. While today the word nationalism has acquired some negative connotations, at Gade’s time it was a rather praiseworthy and commendable stance. In fact, “music nationalists” believed in the value of the traditional musical heritage of their countries, and attempted to disseminate it by employing tunes, rhythms and sounds of folk music in works conceived on the basis of “classi- cal” principles, i.e. those regulating the ”cultivated” repertoire. This can, and should, be seen as an effort to affirm the value of the local over a monolithic and self-referential tradition, and thus as an appreciation of what the local minorities can contribute to the musical repertoire.

Michele Tozzetti:

Bernstein - Complete Solo Piano Music

In the annals of American music, there is no other figure quite like Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): conductor, composer, pianist, teacher, and media star. "Lenny," as his friends called him, was, from the 1940s onward, a durable part of the American fabric, the last classical artist ever to become a household name in the United States. Though widely celebrated-especially for his popular theater works, of which?West Side Story?is the enduring masterpiece, and for his presence on television as the nation's most renowned musical educator-his fame was not achieved without a great deal of controversy.

Michele Tozzetti accomplishes the task brilliantly. He finds the heartfelt tenderness in?Ilana, the Dreamer, brings out the Jewish elements in?Idele, the?Chassidele and animates the dance rhythms of?Yosi, the Jokester?(likely meant as a tribute to cartoonist Yossi Stern). The spirit of Aaron Copland hovers over all of this music; in the?Anniversary?dedicated to him,?For Aaron Copland?(in?Seven Anniversaries, 1943), Tozzetti captures the sound and spirit of the man Bernstein called "my first friend in New York, my master, my idol, my sage, my shrink, my guide, my counselor, my elder brother, [and] my beloved friend." The pianist reveals a delicate sense of sonority along with exquisite dynamic control in?For Paul Bowles, and musters the perfect aggressive edginess to bring to life?For Sergei Koussevitzky.?He injects youthful vigor into Bernstein's Sonata (1937), a probing work rich in counterpoint, written when the composer was still a student.