Rossini drew a line under his hugely successful operatic career at the age of 37 and wrote little until his final years in Paris, where he became renowned for his musical salons. For these he wrote numerous short piano pieces which he jokingly called Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age): sometimes experimental miniatures that can raise a smile or touch the heart, blurring boundaries between the irreverent and the serious. Rossini’s publisher Antonio Pacini considered the composer’s late works as his most illustrious period: ‘what he composes daily is a series of masterpieces that seems as though it will never end.’ Including songs and fascinating novelties, this acclaimed complete edition contains a myriad of rarities and numerous world premiere recordings.

Alessandro Marangoni burst onto the international concert stage in 2007 when he won the prestigious ‘Amici di Milano’ International Prize for the Music. As a noted advocate of Italian music, he has recorded more than 20 albums comprising of Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse, Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Piano Concertos with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Mogrelia, as well as Liszt’s Via Crucis with the Ars Cantica Choir, conducted by Marco Berrini, all on the Naxos label.

This set brings together the 11 volumes on 13 discs of our edition of Rossini’s complete piano works. Other performers have made recordings of parts of the Péchés de vieillesse, but with its comprehensive approach and numerous premiere recordings of pieces including those from recently discovered manuscripts, this monumental Naxos edition is by far the most complete collection available.

Acclaim for Alessandro Marangoni’s playing in these recordings was universal. The Toronto Star commented on Vol.2 (8570766) that ‘this music, all surfaces reflecting gilded salons, requires a high level of artistry to pull off. Marangoni sparkles and seduces over and over again.’ With its inclusion of chamber music pieces, Vol.8 (8573822) was considered ‘a truly unmissable record’ by CD Classico.

In 2019 Marangoni received the Franco Abbiati Prize (Premio Abbiati) of the Italian Critics (Associazione Italiana Critici Musicali), the most important and prestigious prize of Italian critics, for the complete works of Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse: Chamber Music and Rarities (Vols. 8–11).