Santoro: Complete Piano Sonatas

Written over a 46-year period, Claudio Santoro’s six piano sonatas document the evolution of his creative and formal skills – together they present a survey of the composer’s entire aesthetic development. Always radiating a forceful inner power and with expressive lyricism at their heart, the early sonatas explore twelve-note technique as a unifying element, transitioning to a distinctive Brazilian nationalist character by the Third and Fourth sonatas. The Fifth Sonata, from the end of Santoro’s life, is a synthesis of the various idioms he had used over the decades. This is the first complete recording of Santoro’s piano sonatas, performed by the composer’s son, Alessandro Santoro.