Vittorio Rieti’s admission that his musical style was largely neo-Classical belies a cosmopolitan openness to influences that range from Les Six, the Second Viennese School and Stravinsky. This recording shows a youthful and at times mischievous approach – Rieti frequently puts a smile on the face of his music, united with a fondness for brevity, and melodies reminiscent of the atmosphere of Parisian clubs. The Chess Serenade has a whiff of New York Broadway about it, and the dance character in many of these pieces reflects Rieti’s successful work for the stage. Following on from the critically acclaimed first volume (GP921), Giorgio Koukl – described as ‘one of the five or six greatest living pianists today’ by The Art Music Lounge – is once again joined in the works for piano duo by the prize-winning pianist Virginia Rossetti.

Giorgio Koukl is a Czech pianist/harpsichordist and composer. He studied at both the Conservatories of Zürich and Milan, where he took part in the masterclasses of Nikita Magaloff, Jacques Février, and Stanislaus Neuhaus, and with Rudolf Firkušný, friend and advocate of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. It was through Firkušný that Koukl first encountered Martinů‘s music, and is now considered one of the world’s leading interpreters of Martinů‘s piano music. As a logical continuation of this work, Koukl has recorded the complete solo piano works of Paul Le Flem, Alexander Tcherepnin, Arthur Lourié, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Witold Lutosławski, and more recently, Alexandre Tansman and Tibor Harsányi.

Virginia Rossetti began her piano studies with Massimiliano Ferrati, later attending the ‘Antonio Buzzolla’ Conservatory in Adria where she graduated with honours. She has a Master of Performing Arts with distinction at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel and a Master in Pedagogy at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. Rossetti is a prize winner of several national and international piano competitions including the Premio Venezia 2009, reserved for the best graduates under the patronage of the Republic’s President, and the Premio Marizza in Trieste.