The name of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) is now emerging from the shadow cast by his wartime collaboration with Italy's Fascist regime. Operas such as I quattro rusteghi and I gioielli della Madonna occupy a place on the fringes of the repertoire, and Brilliant Classics have made a persuasive case for him as a composer of chamber music in a post-Brahmsian mould with the release of his piano trios. This album was recommended by Classics Today for the 'eloquently sustained' performance of Trio Archè, displaying 'a whimsical discursiveness... that might be described as the lovechild of Schubert and Fauré.' Much the same might be said of Wolf-Ferrari's piano music on the evidence of this new recording by the Italian pianist Costantino Catena, who has made many well-received albums with the Camerata Tokyo. To open the album, Catena has made his own completion of an early, substantial (19-minute) Bagatelle that Wolf-Ferrari left unfinished. Theatricality and high contrast mark the Bagatelle throughout, as one would expect from an experienced composer for the stage, and they lend beguiling variety to the other first recordings here, of Variations on the minuet from Verdi's Falstaff, a Chopin-Phantasie in B minor and a Scherzino, all dating from Wolf-Ferrari's prodigious twenties when he was the toast of new Italian music. Wolf-Ferrari turned to the Romantic genre of character-piece in three Impromptus Op.13 (1904) and three Klavierstücke Op.14 (1905), but he addressed the form i ATTENTION: please remember that all Blu-Rays are Region A USA and all DVDs Region 1 USA and you will need a multi region Blu-Ray/DVD player to play them.