“These piano pieces [by Leoncavallo] […] are definitely worth listening to carefully, […] played in a technically flawless and committed manner by Ingrid Carbone.”
In our experience, Italian opera composers are best known because they . composed operas. And then also operas that achieved world fame and which can still be heard and seen in many theaters today. It is much less known that many of them also moved in other genres. This also applies to the piano works of Rossini, Puccini and Leoncavallo, among others. A double album of the latter was recently released with all his piano works, performed by his compatriot Ingrid Carbone.
And it was about time! In the CD booklet it is stated bluntly, it almost sounds like a reproach: that no more than a few musicologists and musicians know of the existence of Leoncavallo’s piano music. It is a relatively modest oeuvre consisting of just under 40 miniatures (with one exception they remain well under ten minutes). What this fame has not helped is the search for printed editions. It will therefore be clear that the discography is certainly not full of Leoncavallo’s piano works, which also applies to his almost fifty songs, with the exception of Mattinata, which has brought it to wide fame.
Aart van der Wal reviews Ingrid Carbone’s double CD “Ruggiero Leoncavallo: Pour Piano [Complete Works] for Opus Klassiek.