Amongst the operas, the orchestral works and the songs, for which he is very well known, Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (1842-1912) also wrote a piano concerto and various piano pieces. These include a cycle of Improvisations, Ten pieces "de genre" (Op. 10), 2 Valses, 2 Impressions, and some other separated pieces. It can be identified with relative ease the Melodie, alas 'Elégie', the famous song. The CD also include the recording of two transcriptions derived from famous Massenet's melodies: the Meditation from 'Thais', and the 'Aragonaise' from 'Le Cid'. The character of Massenet's music here is mostly cantabile with some virtuoso and fast pieces which give a great variety to the series.
Maurizio Zaccaria is a young talenet from Bari with a great technical ease and interpretive ability. Aldo Ciccolini wrote about him: "This evening I’ve had the great joy to play with young Maurizio Zaccaria performing Rachmaninoff’s Third piano concerto, which is really very difficult. I think that Maurizio Zaccaria is a pianist endowed with rare technical and musical means. His interpretation was moving! I wish him a brilliant carrier. He’s worth of it".
The recordings has been captured in the wonderful theatre of Atri, Teramo, using 6 microphones (Neumann and Sennheiser) and Prism Sound top-class equipment.