GIORGIO FEDERICO GHEDINI (1892-1965): Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2 - Sonatina in D, Puerilia - 4 piccoli pezzi sulle 5 note, Sonata in A Flat, Fantasia, Divertimento contrappuntistico, Capriccio, Ricercare super "Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum", Allegretto.

Description: As the notes go to great pains to point out, Ghedini belongs with Malipiero, Respighi, Casella and Pizzetti chronologically and even idiomatically yet his music is remarkably original, being based strongly on rhythm and counterpoint with none of their Impressionism, modality or neo-classicism. Yet, the 1922 Puerilia - pictures of an ant, cat, cuckoo and rooster - can produce humorous and ingenious sound pictures using only the notes within the space of a fifth on the keyboard. The gorgeous sonata of the same year is calm, contemplative, later sunny but strangely soothing in its unhurried, purling flow. The 1927 Fantasia is dazzing and highly virtuosic and the Divertimento (1940) playful while the 1943 Capriccio is colder, "whiter", its counterpoint intentionally desolate in its virtuosity. The eight-minute Ricercare seems to capture the despair and darkness of the war, its Gregorian theme used in a spare, lean way with silence as important as notes as the piece slowly makes its way into eternity. The first volume of this music didn't sell well at all; this is a crying shame. Massimo Giuseppe Bianchi (piano).