Zuddio, Ferdinando (piano)
Fumagalli: Operatic Grand Fantasias Concert Paraphrasei
The album Operatic Grand Fantasias. Concert Paraphrases for Piano on Operas by Bellini and Donizetti brings back into the discographic foreground the dazzling figure of Adolfo Fumagalli, often described as the Paganini of the piano, and places him at the junction between the operatic stage and the most extravagant virtuoso idiom. The four Grandi Fantasie di Concerto on La sonnambula op. 14, Lucia di Lammermoor op. 26, I puritani op. 28 and Norma op. 30, presented here in their first complete recording and almost entirely in world premiere, cohere into a single overarching cycle in which the legacy of bel canto is transmuted into pianistic dramaturgy. Far from mere pot-pourris of familiar melodies, these expansive wordless poems disclose a feverish laboratory of form, texture and timbral alchemy, brought back into focus by Ferdinando Zuddios ongoing work of retrieval and historical reappraisal.