Piano Music 2

The Swiss composer Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) is best remembered for his development of Eurhythmics, which teaches the appreciation of music through movement. But Jaques-Dalcroze, who studied with Delibes and Fauré in Paris and with Bruckner and Fuchs in Vienna, was a considerable composer in his own right, with operas, cantatas and orchestral works among his substantial output. His 20 Caprices and Rhythmic Studies constitute an important but hitherto unknown set of character-studies, combining a relaxed lyricism with technical challenges of considerable subtlety for the player. Paolo Munao, born in Sicily, is a winner of the prestigious Premio Claudio Abbado and the UNESCO Aschberg Prize for Artists. A student of Sergio Fiorentino and an assistant at the Musik-Akademie in Basel, he now teaches in Florence through the Ministero de l'Instruzione e dell'Universita e della Ricerca and lives in the Impruneta Hills, near Florence.