Scarpini Plays Bach

6CD box with the complete Well Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach. Recording dates: 1961, 1975.

The Italian pianist Pietro Scarpini, born in Rome on 6 April 1911, first studied piano with his mother before going to the Accademia di Santa Cecilia at twelve. There his teachers were Alfredo Casella for piano, Bernardino Molinari for conducting, Alessandro Bustini and Ottorino Respighi for composition and Fernando Germani for organ.

Scarpini's versatility defies any classification: audiences who have heard him playing Beethoven Concerto No.4 under Furtwängler have seen in him the true interpreter of the classics; those who have attended his performances of contemporary music believed that he was perhaps the only pianist able to do full justice to the moderns. He has mastered works such as Bach "The Well-Tempered Clavier", "The Art of Fugue" and the "Goldberg Variations" (in Busoni's version) or Beethoven "Diabelli Variations" and at the same time devoted full recitals to the work of Busoni and Scriabin.