MOLA DI BARI – «The twenty golden fingers of Italy»: this is how, in Russia, they nicknamed the piano duo composed of Marco Sollini and Salvatore Barbatano, among the most appreciated internationally. The two musicians, guests of the Agìmus on Saturday 18 May (8.45 pm) at the Teatro van Westerhout in Mola di Bari, propose a layout entirely dedicated to a Russian composer, Sergej Rachmaninov, including the Prelude in C sharp minor in the version for two pianos developed by the same author, the wonderful Six Pieces op. 11 for piano four hands and two other pages created for two keyboards, the Polka italienne and the Suite n. 2 op. 17.
Among other things, Sollini and Barbatano regularly tackle not only pages of the repertoire for piano duets, but also significant works for two pianos in the chamber music context, even with orchestra. The duo has played in particularly prestigious venues, including the Grosse Salle of the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Krakow Philharmonic, the Smetana Hall in Prague, the Solti Hall at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Palace Festival in St. Petersburg. Furthermore, in the Preporodna Hall in Zagreb, Sollini and Barbatano held an exclusive concert dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Croatia and the Italian Republic, in the presence of the then Croatian president Ivo Josipovic.
The performances in Italy for important concert seasons are significant and the repertoire proposed is truly important, which also includes the complete Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach for two pianos and orchestra, performed and recorded under the direction of Francesco D’Avalos.
Responsible for the International Music Festival «Armonie della sera», Sollini and Barbatano also performed, in the absolute world premiere, «Le Mille e una notte» by Patrizio Marrone, with Ugo Pagliai and Paola Gassman as narrators, and the piece «Tangitud 4» written especially for them by Oscar winner Luis Bacalov. But there are many other compositions dedicated to them by various illustrious authors, including Michele Dall’Ongaro, Sergio Calligaris, Antonio Giacometti and Patrizio Marrone. Furthermore, the duo has recorded several discs, including one dedicated to the complete compositions for piano duets by Rachmaninov, another with chamber music by Rossini, shared with some first parts of the Orchestra della Scala of Milan, and a yet another dedicated to the music for two and four hands piano by Pietro Mascagni. To these is added a CD with «Shéhérazade» and «Capriccio espagnol» in the original versions by Rimskij-Korsakov.
Also worth mentioning are the recordings of the Mozart and Kozeluch Concertos for two pianos and piano four hands and a disc with music by Beethoven distributed by Sony Music. The most recent recording project is, however, represented by the complete works for piano four hands by Saint-Saëns for DaVinci Publishing, a work with which the two musicians obtained five stars from both the magazine «Musica» and «Music Voice », where the album was highlighted as «CD of the month».
