No piano collector can afford to miss this.

Following up on two well-received Steinway & Sons albums, Napoli and The Rascal and the Sparrow, the collaboration between pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi and composer/pianist Roberto Piana continues with Opera Fantasies on a Steinway. Piana's grand operatic fantasies on two masterpieces, Bizet's Carmenand Puccini's La bohème, are world premiere recordings. “Piana knows how to craft virtuoso writing that draws maximum effect from the piano, and Pompa-Baldi has the chops and musical sensitivity to make every track irresistible.” (Pasatiempo)

REVIEW:

Here we have contemporary Italian composer Roberto Piana's Fantasies on La Boheme and Carmen. Both have been generally absent from the piano fantasy world, and both were commissioned by the pianist for this recording.

Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi, already familiar from his excellent Grieg series, allows us to wallow in this glorious retro-like return to the past and thrill to the creative skill that pieces all of these parts together in Lisztian and Thalbergian style. With a technique equal to any of today's pianists, the only proper way to perform these finger twisters is to play them for all they are worth, and Piana has delivered on his commission two glorious essays that are worth plenty. The composer clearly loves this music and embraces it with a panoply of bright colors. His interesting and informative notes are translated by Pompa-Baldi. The sound of the Steinway D is a model of clarity— technically some of the best to be heard today. No piano collector can afford to miss this.

-- American Record Guide (Alan Becker)