The Folk Songs harmonized by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli | Limited Edition

One of the unexpected legacies of the great pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli that came to light after his death was the result of his life-long friendship with the singers of the famous chorus Coro della SAT: arrangements of songs which the Maestro composed over a period of several decades. With their sometimes unconventional sounds, these arrangements bear witness to the extraordinary imaginativeness and originality of the arranger Benedetti Michelangeli, who was always searching for new expressive possibilities for the human voice. For the Coro della SAT, Benedetti Michelangeli arranged altogether 19 folk songs from the italian regions of Trent, Piedmont and Lombardy as well as from the Provence. These songs, united for the first time in a new recording made for this CD, are beeing released on the label dedicated to the art of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.

In the booklet accompanying the CD, the current director of the chorus, Mauro Pedrotti, amusedly relates the origin of the chorus’ friendship and collaboration with Benedetti Michelangeli, and how the chorus greeted the haronizations, which were rather uncustomary for their time.

The complete edition of all of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli’s harmonizations contains, in addition to the comments by Mauro Pedrotti, the complete song texts in the original dialect as well as in Italian, German, French and English translations.