Rossini: Péchés de vieillesse: Vol. 9, Album pour piano, violon, violoncelle, harmonium et cor (excerpts)

During his last decade, Rossini wrote a series of 13 volumes he called Sins of Old Age, of which volume 8 is subtitled Album de château. It contains 12 pieces, each richly characterised. Many are fuelled by an operatic sense of vitality, and we also find dances, fugal writing, and a nightmarish dream episode of great intensity. The five pieces from volume 9 offer equal pleasures – a Christmas Carol, self-quotations from his operas, and a skittish black note joke, all served up with his inimitable gift for melody and enjoyment. ‘Marangoni has a beautiful legato touch, and a keen sense of phrasing.’ (American Record Guide, on Vol. 1: 8570590-91)

When Rossini drew a line under his own hugely successful operatic career at the age of 37, he spent his final years in Paris where he wrote numerous short piano pieces arranged in 14 volumes, which he jokingly called Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age): experimental trifles which blur the boundaries between the irreverent and the serious.

Volume VII, ‘Album de chaumière’ (The Cottage Album) includes gems such as the delightful Petite polka chinoise, the intimate and touching Petite valse de boudoir and the decidedly reassuring Prélude inoffensif.

The recording is rounded off with four solo piano pieces from Volume IX of the Péchés, whose titles, like those of the other works on this disc, are playfully deceptive.