This new CD is devoted to the music of the Italian composer Alfonso Rendano, a virtuoso pianist who performed during the same period as Liszt. Rendano’s own compositions are fascinatingly eclectic but rarely recorded. They are here performed by the soloist Stefano Severino.

Alfonso Rendano was born in 1853 in Carolei in the Cosenza provence of Italy. After a period of study at the Naples Conservatorium, he became a pupil of Sigismund Thalberg, one of the most acclaimed piano virtuosos of the time. Struck by the talent of his pupil, Thalberg sent him to Paris with a letter of recommendation to Rossini that eventually opened the doors to a brilliant solo career that allowed him to play alongside the likes of Franz Liszt and Joseph Joachim. The pieces on this new recording reveal Rendando as a talented composer of complex, yet technically very innovative music.