Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) was one of the most important Russian romantic composers, but he didn’t belong to the “Mighty Handful” or “The Five”, whose strongly nationalistic tendencies he respected, but did not embrace. Glazunov’s music is of “western” charm, lyricism and inner passion. As the Director of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire he led the institution both under Czarism (he reinstated his former teacher Rimsky-Korsakov who had been dismissed for political reasons) and under the first years of communist rule. He influenced a musician of Dimitry Shostakovich’s standing, and taught many other great musicians of the early twentieth century.
This new recording presents works for piano 4-hands and for 2 pianos, both original works and arrangements of orchestral works (such as his famous tone poem Stenka Razin). Glazunov’s fame in orchestral instrumentation did apply to the piano as well: he perfectly knew how to obtain an almost infinite palette of timbral and dynamic shades on the piano.
The Duo Fabrizio Datteri and Nadia Lencioni attended a master class held by Bruno Canino and summer courses held by Aquiles delle Vigne at the Mozarteum of Salzburg, where they were also invited to play in the Wiener Saal. In 2002 they graduated at the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale Incontri col Maestro di Imola with the special award “Master”.
