For this his second volume of Scarlatti Sonatas, Federico Colli takes as his starting point the double sonata Kk 63 and Kk 64. They are two dances, the first (G major) full of vivacity and happiness, the second (D minor) full of indignation and peremptoriness. Working from this concept that opposition is needed to truly experience beauty, Colli has created his own personal double sonatas by pairing works with contrasting tempi, dynamics, character, or feeling. Like the first volume, the album was recorded on a Steinway Model D at Potton Hall in Suffolk.

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.

Praised by Gramophone as ‘one of the more original thinkers of his generation’, the Italian pianist Federico Colli is internationally recognised 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.

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 recognised 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 booklet 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.