The Italian composer Gian Francesco Malipiero, despite considering the piano his ‘strange enemy’, created a highly individual body of works for the instrument, exploring its most beautiful sonorities. + These five contrasting early collections range from the deliberately archaic idiom of the Tre danze antiche to the quirky humor of the Cavalcate (‘Rides’ on a donkey, a camel and a fiery charger), via the resonating bell-sounds of Risonanze and the gentle autumnal melancholy of the Preludi autunnali. + The powerful Poemetti lunari, a struggle between a world of radiant beauty and forces bent on its destruction, are regarded as Malipiero’s first truly personal creation.