Costantino Catena, pianist

“A pianist rare in his generation. He does not hold back in his use of the expression pedal, shining above all in the art of singing on the keyboard with an inventiveness of phrasing that demonstrates his exquisite musical intelligence”: Costantino Catena was defined in these words by the musicologist Carlo Vitali in the magazine Amadeus.

He has performed in Europe, Australia, U.S.A., Russia and Japan at the invitation of important musical and cultural associations and institutes, including the Accademia Filarmonica (Bologna), the Kennedy Center and Georgetown University (Washington), Amici del Teatro Regio (Torino), Amici della Musica (Trapani), the Yasar Concert Hall (Izmir), the Winchester University, Auditorium Parco della Musica (Roma), the Dante Alighieri Society, the Liszt Memorial Museum (Budapest), the Ravello International Festival, the Alghero International Festival, Filarmonica De Stat Transilvania of Cluj-Napoca, the Liszt Institute of Bologna, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the Kusatsu International Festival, the Ohrid Summer Festival.

Costantino Catena has an intense recording activity, mainly with the Japanese label Camerata Tokyo, with which he began working recording Franz Liszt's complete works for violin and piano, as well as a double CD featuring all of his piano works dedicated to Venezia and Napoli, a blu-ray dedicated to Debussy and Schumann and other solo CDs. Recently the CD "Hidden Orchestra", including the Concerto op. 54 by Schumann for Piano and Orchestra transcripted for piano and organ by Claudio Brizi, was included into the programming board by the All Nippon Airway and the CD with the Quartet and the Quintet of Schumann, recorded with the Quartetto Savinio was awarded with 5 stars by the magazine Musica. He has recorded for Phoenix Classics and Nuova Era International labels, too.

His recordings were often broadcasted in Italy and abroad (RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana, NHK Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, RSI Radio della Svizzera Italiana, MR Magyar Rádió) and received excellent reviews from leading magazines and important music critics: «In Nuits d’été à Pausilippe and Soirées Musicales de Rossini Costantino Catena strikes the perfect balance of sentiment and relaxed charm in readings that could scarcely be more idiomatic. In Carnaval de Venise Catena revels in the droll humor and far-fetched technical demands of Liszt’s setting, creating a listening experience that’s great fun. In Venezia e Napoli, the supplement to Book 2 of the Années de pèlerinage, Catena exhibits his natural, unaffected feeling toward the music’s popular source materials. The extended trio of the famous Tarantella is almost ethereal in its beauty. This triptych, recorded so frequently over the past couple of years, is here as deliciously atmospheric and echt-Italian as one could wish.» (Patrick Rucker, Fanfare Magazine - USA); «Catena jumps through the many circus hoops of Liszt’s “Tarantella di bravura sulla Muette di Portici” with grace and fluency. He is finely sensitive in RW - Venezia, capturing all of Liszt’s desolation as he watched Wagner’s funeral procession of gondolas glide down the Grand Canal» (Bryce Morrison, Gramophone UK); «He is able to exploit the delicious mechanics of the Yamaha piano without suffering the notorious musical dullness (only Richter, in my memory, was successful before): the result is a performance in which every note is given meaning, an interpretation in which nothing is left to chance and yet nothing seems studied, the music running elastic, airy, full of vitality» (Bernardo Pieri, Musica); «Interpretations full of grace and sensitivity» (Paolo Isotta).