CCMusic.com

With this CD, WERGO publishes most of Henze's works for piano solo. Piano music occupies only a small part of his existing oeuvre, whereas Hans Werner Henze has written regularly for the piano in combination with other instruments, most of all the orchestra. These pieces on the present recording, played by Homero Francesch who has already played many world premieres of the composer's works, have one idea in common. Whether they date from forty years ago or from the more recent past, it is that the composer's thumbprint is instantly identifiable in the melos, gesture and treatment of long-established forms. Everywhere there is evidence of a living relationship to traditional European and especially Austrian piano music, more particularly piano music by Haydn and Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven, Bach and Stravinsky and of course the composers of the Second Viennese School.