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.

Reviews

Zaccaria’s intégrale is well worth your attention [...] [Massenet']s complete solo piano works comprise 12 titles composed between 1867 and 1907 (they break down into 29 separate short works) and fit conveniently on to one CD. ‐Jeremy Nicholas (01/08/2016) 

Nevertheless, Zaccaria has a light touch well suited to Massenet’s underrated piano music. The delights come in many forms: Un momento musicale (1897) is a terrific piece, and deserves to be heard more. The delights come in many forms. ‐Colin Clarke **** (01/07/2017) 

Zaccaria has won prizes at many competitions and brings technical and musical abilities to this music. Performance and sound quality is very good. ‐James Harrington (01/01/2017) 

Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (4/2016). Nominated @ Jury Klaviermusik category! (See more @ http://www.schallplattenkritik.de/component/docman/doc_download/162-longlist-42016/) ‐ Schallplattenkritik (01/10/2016) 

D'une extrême précision, en parfaite adéquation aver la virtuosité de la Toccata, impressionne plus encore dans la 'Valse lente'... Et Maurizio Zaccaria, en s'inscrivant dans cette lignée, apparaît particuliérement en phase avec la musique de Massenet. ‐Gérard Condé ***** (01/07/2016)