Known for his highly imaginative and philosophical approaches to his musical presentations, Federico Colli is back with a second album on Chandos. Having begun with Scarlatti sonatas, he now turns his hand to the great master J.S. Bach to explore the relationship between Bach’s music for keyboard and what Colli regards as its transcendent quality, its universal beauty. In a personal note for the booklet, Colli explains how he arrived at the extraordinary interpretations captured here. The relationship he explores is discoverable in the Italian Concerto and Partita No. 4, but it is in Ferruccio Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne that the relationship, in his view, becomes clear. Colli offers the listener a vivid interpretation which links the progress of the piece, rich in symbolic detail, to important stages in the life, and afterlife, of Christ, different re-iterations of the theme and of the tonalities corresponding with key moments in the religious narrative. As always, Colli gives deeply felt and exciting performances, his irrepressible personality and flair evident throughout.
REVIEW:
My enthusiasm for this disc is less about Colli’s philosophical ruminations upon the music, however heartfelt they may be, and more about his approach to playing it, which is both compelling and fresh; it combines abundant technical finesse with a visionary grasp of scale and structure, as well as the ability to project extremes of fragility and monumentality (most notably in the Chaconne), and above all to conjure a kaleidoscopic palette of colours and textures from his Steinway. This is an intelligently compiled programme, stunningly performed, in immaculate sound. Do not hesitate.
Each recording in this 40-disc set has been selected by Chandos Managing Director, Ralph Couzens, son of the label founder, because it represents a turning point, or ‘Landmark’, in the development of the label.
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Founded by Brian Couzens in 1979, Chandos quickly established itself as one of the world’s leading classical labels. The ‘Chandos Sound’ has become a benchmark for quality, renowned alike among artists and critics around the globe.
From its inception, Chandos has specialised in recording British music, and in bringing lesser-known (and unknown) music to public attention. Released to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the label, this handsomely packaged 40-disc set comprises 40 complete recordings from Chandos’ extensive catalogue.
Each of the four decades is represented, and each recording has been hand-picked by the Managing Director, Ralph Couzens, because it represents a turning point, or ‘Landmark’, in the development of the label.
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Excerpts from select reviews of previously released volumes included in this set:
Prokofiev: Symphony No 6, Waltzes Suite, Etc. / Järvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra - NLA
This 1984 recording put the somewhat neglected Sixth Symphony of Prokofiev back on the musical map; it remains on balance the finest available.
– ClassicsToday.com
Vaughan Williams: London Symphony; Butterworth: Banks of Green Willow / Hickox, LSO
Conductor and orchestra respond with an unquenchable spirit, generous flexibility and tender affection that suit VW’s admirably ambitious inspiration to a T, and Chandos’s sound is big and bold to match. Quite simply, an essential purchase for anyone remotely interested in British music.
– Gramophone
Ravel, Debussy & Massenet / Bavouzet, Tortelier, BBC Symphony Bavouzet gets the tempo changes in Ravel's G Major Concerto absolutely right, following up with one of the most songfully flowing and elegantly shaped accounts of the Adagio on disc, and concluding with an absolutely scorching finale. The Massenet encores are both novel and delightful.
Chandos’ new exclusive collaboration with the recent Salzburg and Leeds competition winner Federico Colli is kicking off with this first volume in a unique Scarlatti series. Playing on a modern Steinway, the Italian pianist – internationally recognized for his intelligent, imaginative interpretations and impeccable technique – here explores the keyboard sonatas of Scarlatti, taking a fresh approach from a philosophical angle, by grouping the compositions into ‘chapters’ in order to reflect the many contrasts of his life and his contradictory personality. In personal liner notes Colli reveals: "I conceived a map of a journey into transcendental thought, beyond the works’ phenomenological meaning. Each chapter has a title and the individual sonatas in each chapter refer back to the permeating image of its basic idea." This album is an exceptional start to what promises to be an exciting, long-lasting partnership.
This new release is the second volume in Federico Colli’s series of piano sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. Federico first came to prominence after winning the Salzburg Mozart Competition in 2011 and the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2012. Since then, he has been performing with orchestras including the Mariinsky Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, RAI National Symphony, Royal Scottish National, RTÉ National Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Wiener Kammerorchester, Philharmonia Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic; at venues such as the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Royal Albert Hall, Berlin Konzerthaus, Munich Herkulessaal, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Elbphilharmonie, Barbican Hall, Kumho Art Centre in Seoul, Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, Dublin National Concert Hall, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Royal Festival Hall and the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg.
International sensation Federico Colli continues his personal exploration of the music of Mozart with this second volume of works for solo piano. Colli opens his programme with the Adagio in B minor, K. 540, from 1788, toward the end of Mozart's short life. The only piece on the album not to involve variation form, this Adagio instead adopts sonata form, and is an extremely rare case in Mozart's output of it's chosen key. The two sets of variations that follow (from the seventeen sets that Mozart composed) use a similar approach in their method of constructing variations on the theme - 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' in the first instance, and Gluck's smash hit 'Les Hommes pieusement' (or 'Unser dummer Pobel meint') in the second. Colli concludes his programme with the rather extraordinary Sonata in A major, K. 311. Instead of the expected sonata form, the first movement is a theme with (six) variations. Following the second movement (a minuet and trio), Mozart finishes with a rondo - arguably one of his most famous pieces, the 'Alla turca'.
Praised by Gramophone as ‘one of the more original thinkers of his generation’, the Italian pianist Federico Colli is internationally recognized for his highly imaginative and philosophical interpretations and impeccable technique. This album is the first instalment of a new, intensely personal project for the pianist: an exploration of selected piano works by Mozart. It was the discovery (at the age of around six) of Mozart’s music that caught the imagination of the young Federico and inspired him to study music, and it was winning the International Piano Competition Mozart, in Salzburg, that launched his career as a pianist. His approach has been to immerse himself completely in Mozart’s own experience at the composition of each piece: where was Mozart living, what was he doing, what were his motivations behind each composition? Only after in-depth study of biographies of Mozart, his (and others’) letters, the historical, social, and political background, the Zeitgeist, the cultural atmosphere surrounding each work, does Colli then approach the scores and start the process of building his interpretations.
Acclaim:
“The opening sound we hear on Federico Colli’s album tells us that this idiosyncratic pianist’s first installment in a Mozart series is going to be particularly adventurous… The willing listener just needs to follow where Colli goes.” --Times of London
Following a highly successful series of concerts in the summer of 2022, Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, Laura van der Heijden, and Federico Colli headed into the studio to record Mozart’s Piano Quartets. Whilst he may not have been the first composer to add a viola to the popular piano trio, Mozart was certainly the first to do so with such outstanding success.
In his piano quartets, the strings become an equal partner to the piano, rather than mere accompaniment – much as in his piano concertos. This link is reinforced by his choice of form – unlike his string quartets, the piano quartets have three movements rather than four: a full-bodied movement in sonata form, a lighter central slow movement in a related key, and a rondo finale. Both works were composed during the three-year period, from February 1784 to December 1786, in which Mozart wrote twelve piano concertos. The first quartet is written in the key of G minor – rarely used by Mozart – and the overall mood is quite dark, almost disturbing. The second quartet, in E flat major, is by contrast much sunnier in atmosphere. Consequently, the two works together make for a very satisfying program.
REVIEW:
There’s no real star: this is real chamber music. And yet, first among equals, Colli’s piano is the center of gravity, setting the tone with quiet grace when he’s foregrounded, and sounding characterful and eloquent even when he’s in the background; he never has to push his way through...this is chamber-music playing that really has something to say, and it’s never complacent.
