In the long teaching practice of Vito Paternoster (cello teacher for 44 years at the N. Piccinni Conservatory in Bari), the need often arose to support piano studies for young students, conceived in the mid-19th century and designed for the unaccompanied cello alone. Simple pieces, of progressive difficulty, based on the idea of identifying a particular technical difficulty and reiterating it in various ways.

Maestro Raffaele Gervasio (his composition teacher in the 1970s) had already begun to write accompaniments that went beyond harmonic support, but created harmonies and rhythms in a wide variety of styles that departed from the context for which they were originally created. On the other hand, even the great Bach used simple folk songs (the Tenor) to build around them musical structures of dizzying height and complexity, such as cantatas or chorales.

Vito Paternoster collects the studies of the two most famous cellists, the ones who “invented” the Romantic cello (Franchomme and Kummer), and, in a curious blend, completely disguises them, transforming them into original modern compositions. Imagination, irony, and technical wit do the rest.

Vito Paternoster – cello
Leo Binetti – keyboards