Physical Release: 13 November 2026
Digital Release: 13 November 2026
Soon on Exit Music
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| Composer(s) | Francesco Paolo Tosti, Franz Liszt, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Maurice Ravel |
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Singer’s introduction
As I continued my singing studies in Italy, my wonderful teachers Giorgio Favaretto, Rolando Panerai and Lajos Kozma helped me develop a sensitivity to the chamber-song repertoire. Kozma, who had studied with such distinguished artists as Tito Schipa and Riccardo Stracciari, taught me for two years in Umbria. On one occasion he sent me to Spoleto to sing for the composer Giancarlo Menotti, founder of the Festival dei Due Mondi. Also present was the Greek conductor Spiros Argiris, with whom I had already worked in Florence. I sang an aria by Mozart and another from Giuseppe Verdi’s I due Foscari, after which Maestro Menotti asked for something from the chamber repertoire. When I performed Franz Liszt’s first Petrarch sonnet to Laura, the room fell silent; then Menotti approached and spontaneously embraced me. In those years I also met Sylvano Bussotti, a contemporary composer, celebrated director and much else besides, who was moved when I sang Schubert or Tchaikovsky. Something similar happened when I met the German composer Hans Werner Henze. Yet singing this repertoire often involved a risk for me, as it still does today. Magnificent poetry joined to extraordinary music could stir such intense emotion that I found myself unable to continue singing. With time I have somehow learnt to manage those feelings, although even now it is not always easy. Years ago, while seeking an interpretative approach to Liszt’s sonnets, I had doubts about how to perform them technically. With the interpretations of great tenors such as Pavarotti and Kraus in my ears, it was almost easier to sing them in an operatic manner. I felt, however, that this conflicted with the extraordinarily intimate atmosphere of several passages. Here I therefore often use the old aperto-coperto technique, which I believe is more appropriate and effective for their strongly emotional character: singing simply, as though reciting poetry through musical notes.
Rolando Panerai introduced me to Verdi’s chamber music. He loved this repertoire and tried to pass on his experience to me. It is difficult to perform these songs in the manner of a Lied; equally, I believe it is impossible to sing them as operatic arias. Finding the right balance means bringing together two very different styles. I have tried to begin with the poetic texts, conveying each story, each small drama, each joy and melancholy. At the end of 2023, in a concert at the Teatro Niccolini, Florence’s oldest theatre, I sang some of Panerai’s favourite Verdi chamber arias. Whenever I interpret this repertoire, I think of my friend, the celebrated Tuscan baritone. In 2024, for the centenary of Panerai’s birth, I had the honour of giving a recital in Florence with Marco Balderi, who also accompanies me in the Italian part of this recording.
In 1890 Puccini met Francesco Paolo Tosti, and the two soon became inseparable friends. Together with the painter Francesco Michetti, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio and other artists, they often met in Francavilla al Mare. Tosti remains the foremost composer of Italian chamber songs spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He wrote approximately four hundred compositions, most inspired by the verses of the leading poets of his time. Apart from three sacred works and a few instrumental pieces, these are all songs in Italian, English, French or Neapolitan dialect.
In 2016 an English music newspaper compared Sir Paolo Tosti’s popularity in his own age to that of the Beatles in ours. In 1906, for Tosti’s sixtieth birthday, Puccini dedicated to him one of his songs, Sole e amore.
In 1879 Gabriele D’Annunzio, then just seventeen, first met the future celebrated Francesco Paolo Tosti at the home of the painter Michetti. A few months later, in 1880, Tosti composed Visione!, marking the beginning of a collaboration between the two artists from Abruzzo, who remained friends until Tosti’s death in 1916. In 1907 D’Annunzio wrote the Quattro canzoni d’Amaranta for Tosti. The cycle’s extensive piano introduction is unique within Tosti’s output. According to Francesco Sanvitale, philosophical elements are present here, rather than love alone. In the first two songs we encounter the myth of Tristan and Isolde, with Tristan fearing the light and the coming day. The comparison between Amaranta and Isolde is entirely unprecedented in Tosti’s work.
The poems remained in a drawer for more than a year, as Tosti was unable to compose their music. He even wrote to the publisher Ricordi to apologise for the delay. Nevertheless, in 1907 the cycle was completed and became one of the most sublime examples of the great Abruzzese composer’s art.
As a young singer I met the legendary Fedora Barbieri in Florence. Whenever we worked together, she would repeat Arturo Toscanini’s words: “The word sculpted in bronze!” Every word had to be understood even in the back row of the largest hall, especially in chamber repertoire such as Tosti’s.
Giacomo Puccini’s chamber songs span every stage and change of his life, reflecting his most intimate feelings and amorous passions. Most of his nineteen vocal songs contained motifs from his most celebrated operatic arias for soprano or tenor, which had yet to be written. Originally a bass-baritone and later a baritone, I sought out and selected songs that carried as little as possible of the character of Mimì, Rodolfo or Calaf.
Among the seven pieces chosen, one, Ad una morta, clearly reveals Calaf’s motif “all’alba vincerò” in the words “quale eri un dì quaggiù”.
Puccini often visited Verdi in Milan. From the beginning, Verdi showed him great warmth and extraordinary kindness. Puccini recalled: “…whenever he saw me, he spoke to me about the Aeneid”, from which, he said, the subject for a new opera should be drawn. In 1876 the young Puccini walked the thirty kilometres from Lucca to Pisa to hear Verdi’s Aida, wearing out a pair of shoes and being profoundly struck by Verdi’s genius. It is worth recalling that Puccini entered the Milan Conservatory as a pupil of Amilcare Ponchielli, where Verdi himself had been refused admission years earlier. The two great composers remained friends until Verdi’s death.
Puccini remains one of the most frequently performed composers internationally, after Mozart and Verdi. He is widely regarded as Verdi’s successor and heir. This position was affirmed in Turin following the first performance of Manon Lescaut in 1893, deliberately arranged by the publisher Giulio Ricordi eight days before the world premiere of Falstaff in Milan.
At the beginning of my singing studies in Poland, in the class of the wonderful Barbara Iglikowska, who came from Odessa, I discovered at her home a vinyl recording of Maurice Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée sung by the French baritone Gérard Souzay. I remember how deeply it impressed me. Through the naturalness of his interpretation, he turned each song into pure emotion. Years later, when I met the great Belgian bass-baritone José van Dam, his balanced and mature interpretation, at once spontaneous and energetic, brought me great joy. It was van Dam’s interpretation that persuaded me to record the second song, Chanson épique, at a slower tempo than the composer indicated, while preserving its long phrases.
The principal difficulty lay in how a non-native speaker could convey Ravel’s refined taste through a sincere interpretation, and how to distinguish the character of each song while maintaining the cycle’s expressive and musical unity. The first song, Chanson romanesque, has the rhythm of the guajira; the second, Chanson épique, uses the zortziko from the Basque Country; and the last, Chanson à boire, is based on the jota. Working with the French-Polish pianist Maciej Pikulski, who collaborated with José van Dam for years in concerts and recordings, was decisive for me.
Stanisław Daniel Kotliński
He studied piano at the Luigi Boccherini Musical Institute of Lucca, before entering the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory of Florence, where he obtained the diplomas in choral conducting, harpsichord and organ. He also gained an honours diploma in orchestral conducting from the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome.
Between 1984 and 1989, Marco Balderi worked as an assistant to many distinguished conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Carlo Maria Giulini, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Patanè, and Wolfgang Sawallisch, in venues such as the Florence Opera, the Teatro alla Scala or the Salzburg Festival.
Marco Balderi began his career as orchestral conductor after winning the International Competitions in Salzburg, Besançon and Alessandria. Foreign tours have taken him to Austria, Belgium, China, South Korea, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Mexico, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the USA, where he conducted more than 90 orchestras such as the Radio France Orchestra, the New Symphony Orchestra of Boston, the RAI Symphony Orchestras of Milan, Rome and Turin, the Italian Swiss Radio and Television Orchestra, the Metropolitan Orchestra of Tokyo, the Orchestras of the Cagliari, Bologna, Rome and Verona Theatres, the Radio and Television Orchestra of Moscow, the European Orchestra of Vienna, the Warsaw National Opera, the Radio and Television Orchestra of Bucarest, the Accademia Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, the Padova Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Oper Orchestra of Berlin, the Paris Opera Orchestra, and the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra.
His repertoire includes over 200 symphonic works, with the complete cycles of the symphonies by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Schumann, and 60 operas. Twentieth-century and new music occupies a prominent place in his career, with premieres of works by Berio, D'Amico, Donatoni, Ferrero, Glass, Ligeti, Sciarrino, Testoni, Xenakis. He has recorded Casella’s “La Giara” and Respighi’s “Christus”. Highlights in his career have included Mascagni’s “Satanic Rhapsody” in Livorno and Bologna and Menotti’s “The Wedding Day” (a live performance for the opening of the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul).
As pianist/conductor Marco Balderi has performed in Italy, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, France, Japan, South Korea (concertos for piano and orchestra by Bach and Mozart). He appeared as accompanist in vocal recitals with Andrea Bocelli, Renato Bruson, José Cura, Ghena Dimitrova, Maureen Forrester, Barbara Frittoli, Nicolai Gedda, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Giuseppe Giacomini, Nicola Martinucci, Mariana Nicolesco, Leo Nucci, Luciano Pavarotti and Cesare Siepi. He served as Artistic Director of the Ongakoyoku Festival in Niigata, Japan and of the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago. In Paris he conducted in concert Luciano Pavarotti with Charles Aznavour.
In recent years he has conducted “Madama Butterfly” at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and the Opéra Bastille in Paris (dir. Bob Wilson), “La Bohème” at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, Toulon, Bordeaux and in Fano (dir. Luciano Pavarotti), “La Traviata” in Florence, “L'Elisir d'amore” at the Royal Opera de Wallonie in Liège, Seoul and Budapest National Opera, an opera gala at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow with the Russian National Orchestra, “Carmen” in Warsaw with Denyce Graves and “Falstaff” in Łódź, Poland with Renato Bruson. He also worked extensively in South Korea, with productions of “Lucia di Lammermoor”, “La Bohème”, “Madama Butterfly”, “Carmen”, “Rigoletto”, “Tosca”, “La Traviata” and “Turandot: at the Seoul Arts Center (2013-17).
His honours include the Premio Pegasus Award (1994) and the prestigious Tutor Campus Castle Award from the Rome Academy of Fine Arts (1998).
Stanisław Daniel Kotliński
He studied at the Gdańsk Academy of Music with Barbara Iglikowska, specializing in Italy at the Accademia Chigiana and the Fiesole Academy, under the guidance of the masters: Giorgio Favaretto, Fedora Barbieri, Lajos Kozma, Claudio Desderi and Rolando Panerai. In his youth he was a music journalist, spokesman for the “Solidarność” Union, and a political prisoner in communist Poland. His international singing career began in Florence, where he made his debut in Schönberg's opera „Moses und Aron” conducted by Zubin Mehta. As the protagonist in the role of Eddy he sang in the Italian premiere of the opera "Greek" by M. A. Turnage, at the Festival „Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte” of Montepulciano (also in a TV version for RAI) with the artistic direction of H. W. Henze (1991). At the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival he performed in the first Italian performance of the stage version of Kurt Weill's "Berliner Requiem". His singing activity was interrupted for health reasons for several years, he was a music manager. He was the first superintendent of the Teatro dell'Auditorium al Duomo, for years he has been a musical expert at the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation in Florence. He has collaborated with Carnegie Hall, Teatro alla Scala; Puccini Festival, Ravenna and Wexford Festival; with Krzysztof Penderecki and the Sinfonia Varsovia, Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, James Levine and the Munich Philharmonic, Yakov Kreizberg with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Jacek Kaspszyk and the Munich Radio Orchestra, Claudio Desderi and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, and Plácido Domingo with the “Arturo Toscanini” Philharmonic. During the years 2009-2024 he performed in many important artistic institutions of the world: in Berlin, Bonn, Alicante, Florence, Doha, Dresden, Jinan, Hangzhou, Muscat, Nanchang, Parma, St. Petersburg, Rome, Mexico City, Bad Kissingen, Martina Franca, Marseille, Milan, Monte-Carlo, Munich, Moscow, Prague, Beijing, Salzburg, Lisbon, Lucerne, Vaduz, Valencia, Warsaw, Vienna, Vilnius and New York. The first Polish artist to perform at the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman, he sang at the Qatar Opera House for the anniversary of the National Orchestra created by Lorin Maazel. Under the guidance of Lawrence Foster he was Père Laurence in Berlioz's “Roméo et Juliette” with the Gulbenkian Philharmonic. With the Chinese conductor Chen Zuohuang he concluded the season of the NCPA National Performing Art Center in Beijing together with the violinist Ning Feng. He was the first resident artist in the thirty-year history of the Bavarian “Kissinger Sommer” Festival. At the Lucerne festival he was Salieri in the opera "Mozart and Salieri" by Rimsky-Korsakov. For Bayerischer Rundfunk he recorded “L’Elisir d’amore” as Dulcamara. At the Rudolfinum in Prague he performed with the Czech National Philharmonic conducted by Jirí Belohlávek, in Haydn's oratorio „Die Schöpfung”, and in Beethoven's „Missa Solemnis”. For the inauguration of the Verdi year he performed in Munich in the opera "I due Foscari". With the Bamberger Symphoniker conducted by Alain Altinoglu he sang Rossini's "Stabat Mater". He sang with Edita Gruberowa, on the occasion of the 45-year career of the famous soprano, at the Gasteig in Munich and at the Musikverein in Vienna. For Arte TV he recorded Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" with Waltraud Meier, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille and Lawrence Foster. He shared concerts with pianists such as Rudolf Buchbinder, Khatia Buniatishvili, Evgeny Bozhanov, Igor Levit, Daniil Trifonov and Lang Lang. During the Dresdner Musikfestspiele he sang Rossini's "Petite Messe Solennelle" conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann. In Munich he sang with the soprano Olga Peretyatko, at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg he performed with the American pianist Donald Sulzen. For the conclusion of the Beethoven Festival in Valencia he sang at the Palau de la Musica with the Orchestra de Valencia and Yaron Traub. During the International Festival “Solidarity of Arts” (Gdańsk, 2017), he made his debut as Rocco in Beethoven's opera “Fidelio” conducted by Julien Salemkour. He is one of the founders of the International Festival “Stars & Rising Stars” in Munich, inaugurated in 2017 with Cecilia Bartoli, in which great artists present young musical talents. He held concerts in Bonn for the Beethoven celebrations with the Salzburger Hofmusik Orchestra of Salzburg. He also appeared as the protagonist in Donizetti's operas „The Bell” and „Grass Thursday” to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Chamber Opera. He was Lucifer in Alessandro Stradella's "Cantata for the Most Holy Christmas", broadcasted worldwide from the Royal Castle of Warsaw during the Covid period. He carries out an intense teaching activity, is a full professor of musical art in Gdansk, at the „Stanisław Moniuszko” Academy of Music, and has held courses and seminars in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Florence, Parma, Pescara, Dresden, Teramo, Saarbrücken, Mexico City and Beijing. He has received important awards and recognitions in Poland and around the world. In 2017, during a ceremony held at the "Salone dei Cinquecento" of Palazzo Vecchio, he was awarded the "Lorenzo il Magnifico European Prize" by the Medici Academy of Florence, already given to illustrious personalities, such as Pavarotti, Panerai, Tebaldi, Eco, Fo, Gassman, Mitoraj, Agnelli, Andreotti, Ciampi, Mitterrand, Brandt and Gorbachov. In 2020 he sang in Salzburg and on tour in China with „Orchester 1756 Salzburg”. In summer 2022 he sang with the Lithuanian National Orchestra and the Vilnius Choir, in the first Lithuanian performance of the opera-oratorio „Marie Magdeleine” by Jules Massenet. 2022 he recorded a CD entitled „Sir Paolo Tosti and his fascinating World of Fin-de-Siècle”, dedicated to the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II (Tosti, Braga, Bridge, Verdi). He sang in recitals for Tosti's anniversary (2021) in Ortona (Teatro Tosti), in Warsaw (Teatro Nazionale), and in Florence (Teatro Niccolini) in 2023. He performed the repertoire of Gustav Mahler (“Des Knaben Wunderhorn”) with the Zielona Góra Philharmonic conducted by Rafał Kłoczko (2024). To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Rolando Panerai, one of the most legendary Italian baritones of the 20th century, in October 2024 Kotliński participated in the conference dedicated to the Tuscan baritone, also performing a concert "Rolando Panerai in Memoriam" with Marco Balderi in Florence. At the end of the Puccini year he sang a recital at the Italian Institute in Warsaw with Tamara Granat on the piano, entitled "Puccini & Friends". He has recorded for Dux, Foné, Naxos America, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Arte TV, Polish Radiotelevisione, RAI – Italian Radiotelevision, Russian National Television, Chinese CCTV, Qatar TV, Oman TV, for Polish, French, Czech, Swiss and Spanish Radio.
Francesco Paolo Tosti: (b Ortano sul Mare, 9 April 1846; d Rome, 2 Dec 1916). Italian song composer and singing teacher. He entered the Naples Conservatory in 1858, studying the violin under Pinto and composition under Conti and Mercadante. In 1869, illness and overwork as maestrino at the college enforced a period of convalescence in Ortano. There he wrote Non m’ama più and Lamento d’amore, songs which subsequently became popular but which he initially found difficult to publish. Sgambati helped Tosti establish himself in Rome (where his admirers included D’Annunzio) by composing a ballad for a concert at the Sala Dante which Tosti himself sang in addition to his own works. Princess Margherita of Savoy (later Queen of Italy) was present and immediately appointed him her singing teacher and shortly thereafter curator of the court music archives. Tosti first visited London in 1875, and then made annual spring visits until he settled there in 1880. In the same year he was appointed singing teacher to the royal family, and from 1894 he was professor of singing at the RAM. He became a British subject in 1906, was knighted in 1908, and retired to Italy in 1912.
The songs Forever, Goodbye, Mother, At Vespers, Amore, Aprile, Vorrei morire and That Day were among his earliest successes in England. He was a prolific composer to Italian, French and English texts, with a graceful, fluent melodic style that quickly found favour among singers of drawing-room songs and ballads; the ballad ‘alla Tosti’ also found many imitators. His Vocal Albums, the 15 duets Canti popolari abruzzesi, and later songs such as Mattinata and Serenata all enjoyed great success.
Franz Liszt: (b Raiding, (Doborján), 22 Oct 1811; d Bayreuth, 31 July 1886). Hungarian composer, pianist and teacher. He was one of the leaders of the Romantic movement in music. In his compositions he developed new methods, both imaginative and technical, which left their mark upon his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some 20th-century ideas and procedures; he also evolved the method of ‘transformation of themes’ as part of his revolution in form, made radical experiments in harmony and invented the symphonic poem for orchestra. As the greatest piano virtuoso of his time, he used his sensational technique and captivating concert personality not only for personal effect but to spread, through his transcriptions, knowledge of other composers’ music. As a conductor and teacher, especially at Weimar, he made himself the most influential figure of the New German School dedicated to progress in music. His unremitting championship of Wagner and Berlioz helped these composers achieve a wider European fame. Equally important was his unrivalled commitment to preserving and promoting the best of the past, including Bach, Handel, Schubert, Weber and above all Beethoven; his performances of such works as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Hammerklavier Sonata created new audiences for music hitherto regarded as incomprehensible. The seeming contradictions in his personal life – a strong religious impulse mingled with a love of worldly sensation – were resolved by him with difficulty. Yet the vast amount of new biographical information makes the unthinking view of him as ‘half gypsy, half priest’ impossible to sustain. He contained in his character more of the ideals and aspirations of the 19th century than any other major musician.
Profile from The New Grove dictionary of Music and Musicians
Giacomo Puccini (b Lucca, 22 Dec 1858; d Brussels, 29 Nov 1924). Italian composer, son of (4) Michele Puccini. He was the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi.
Giuseppe Verdi: (b Roncole, nr Busseto, 9/10 Oct 1813; d Milan, 27 Jan 1901). Italian composer. By common consent he is recognized as the greatest Italian musical dramatist.
Maurice Ravel (b Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées, 7 March 1875; d Paris, 28 Dec 1937). French composer. He was one of the most original and sophisticated musicians of the early 20th century. His instrumental writing – whether for solo piano, for ensemble or for orchestra – explored new possibilities, which he developed at the same time as (or even before) his great contemporary Debussy, and his fascination with the past and with the exotic resulted in music of a distinctively French sensibility and refinement.
Available from 13 November 2026.
Physical Release: 4 December 2026Digital Release: 4 December 2026Soon on...
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