They wrote

Massimo Anfossi's interpretation is delightful for its natural elegance and its lively yet never gratuitously brilliant phrasing... Anfossi shows style, technique, and good taste. And the recording quality is excellent... Anfossi acquits himself beautifully and shows great respect for the composer, never forcing the structures, never seeking easy effects nor showing off virtuosity, focusing instead on sound and phrasing... The real test comes with the Bagatelles Op. 126... a test passed brilliantly, as Anfossi confirms himself to be a refined and measured interpreter... under Anfossi's fingers it retains a warm, consoling songfulness... an emotional warmth of rare evocative power."
Luca Segalla, RIVISTA MUSICA, 2012

"Piano Works by Bruno Bettinelli... an anthology of his pages performed masterfully by Massimo Anfossi…"
"...the performer offers an extremely meticulous, almost obsessive reading, full of nuances that do full justice to these pages. There is no shortage of coloristic and timbral emphasis, along with a perceptive rhythmic sense and a notable melodic expressiveness."
Alberto Cima, La Provincia–Como, 2007

"EXTRAORDINARY CONCRETENESS"
"...the interpretation has great strength and clarity... an expressive world, with a poetry that is never denied, which Anfossi approaches with naturalness and expressive breath. But the entire programme, assembled with historical taste and precision… testifies to an artist's flair and a praiseworthy dedication as an interpreter."
Angelo Foletto, Suonare News, June 2007

"A pianist of undoubted technical ability and remarkable interpretive intelligence, Massimo Anfossi delivers a series of incisive readings, marked by a careful pursuit of sound."
Roberto Iovino, Il Giornale della Musica, October 2007

"...heavenly music in its melodic flow... a strong continuity characterizes Bettinelli's entire creative arc, as this significant anthology of piano pages demonstrates, presented here in its world-premiere recording. Massimo Anfossi proves to be a highly skilled interpreter in conveying the uniqueness of Bettinelli's art, in which melody always plays a leading role, though stripped of any sentimental or Romantic aura. Even the somewhat clinical character of the sound achieved in the recording studio... contributes to the formal and emotional clarity of this recording."
Luca Segalla, Musica, December 2008

"In the diaphanous colours of Milan between the pre- and post-war years lives the piano music of Bruno Bettinelli, an instrument rich in sound, dense with solutions, innovative and forward-looking.... Massimo Anfossi reads this repertoire like someone able to move easily within the Maestro's architectures, free of academic rhetoric but with a sensitivity and awareness that even in a foggy urban landscape much poetry can lie hidden."
Michele Coralli, altremusiche.it, March 2009

"On the CD Bruno Bettinelli: Piano Works, produced by the Ducale label, pianist Massimo Anfossi offers a refined interpretation of several pieces by the Milanese composer... In these five compositions, Bettinelli's long compositional journey is revealed also thanks to Massimo Anfossi's meticulously text-respectful performance... Anfossi has the merit of caring for detail. His respectful handling of phrasing, precise rhythmic articulation, and skillful balancing of contrasts between lyrically expansive and sharply aggressive episodes allow the listener to clearly identify the essential connections and turning points in the formal architecture of the pieces. Anfossi's attention to rendering the subtlest timbral nuances ultimately gives proper prominence to Bettinelli's pianistic writing, devoted to the full realization of the piano's expressive resources."
Anna Scalfaro, ilsaggiatoremusicale.it, 2009

FRANCESO CILEA Complete Chamber Music
Sonata op. 38 per violoncello e pianoforteTre Pezzi op. 43 per violoncello e pianoforte.
Trio per pianoforte, violino e violoncello.
Suite per violino e pianoforte.
Vassilev, Glavina, Anfossi. Agorà AG 192.1. 63’54’’

Technical Assessment: EXCELLENT. DDD Stereo. Studio. San Martino, 8/98
A fine, natural-sounding recording. The balance between the instruments is well judged.
Interpretation: EXCELLENT

An interesting disc which, with the exception of the 1932 Tema con variazioni for violin and piano, presents the composer's entire chamber music output. A worthwhile project, as it allows us a glimpse into a little-known part of the output of a composer who has remained in the repertoire almost exclusively through the operas L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur… The performances are highly musical and marked by an honest, unaffected directness… The Sonata Op. 38 was composed at the age of twenty-two and features a sorrowful, expressive Largo, well drawn by the performers with an unmannered melancholy… the Trio, the work of a twenty-year-old (1886), seems the most homogeneous piece, and the performers succeed well in characterizing both the brilliant passages, rendered with musical playfulness, and the more songful moments, expressively bringing out the composer's flowing, refined melodies… The performers remain consistently on form throughout, both instrumentally and in their efforts to bring definition to these works.
Enrico Meyer, CD Classica


CILEA: Sonata en re mayor para violonchelo y piano, op. 38. Tres piezas para violonchelo y piano, op. 43. Trio en re mayor para piano, violin y violonchelo. Suite en mi mayor para violin y piano. Mario Vassilev, violin; Giulio Glavina, violonchelo; Massimo Anfossi, piano. AGORA’ AG 192.1. DDD. 63’54’’.

De las poquìsimas obras camerìsticas compuestas por Cilea se han escogito para este disco dos pàginas de juventud: el Trio (1886) y la Sonata (1888), dunque esta ultima fue revisada en 1947, y dos obras tan de su ultima etapa: la Suite (1937) y las Tres piezas, de 1949, tan sòlo un ano antes de su muerte. Todas ellas poseen un rico caudal melodico, lìneas suaves sin apenas aristas y un certo clima de melancolìa en de la expresìon; estamos en definitiva ante una musica amable, de buen gusto, solidamente construida, que refleja un mundo sonoro entre nostalgico y decadente. Asì lo han entendido los intérpretes, que se entregan a unas lecturas muy equilibradas, diàfanas y convincentes en su consunto, ayudados por una grabaciòn de extraorinaria presenzia.
D.A.V—Scherzo –Espana


A Genoese Trio Rediscovers Francesco Cilea

Say "Cilea," and the mind immediately turns to the inimitable Magda Olivero in the rounded arioso in A-flat major, "Io son l'umile ancella," from the first act of Adriana Lecouvreur. But this composer, Calabrian by birth though Ligurian by adoption (he died in 1950 in Varazze, where he had moved in 1947), artistically grouped among the composers of the "Giovane Scuola," did not devote himself to opera alone. This is recalled by a very recent CD, "Francesco Cilea Chamber Music," released on the Milanese label Agorà, in which a young Ligurian trio (Mario Vassilev, violin; Giulio Glavina, cello; and Massimo Anfossi, piano) presents an interesting yet little-known chamber repertoire left to us by Cilea… It is well worth listening to the delicate phrasing, the extraordinary lyricism, at times the knowing irony, and the balance of pieces such as the Sonata Op. 38 in D major and the Suite in E major for piano, violin and cello, and the three Pieces Op. 43 for cello and piano, all featured on this recording. The interpretation offered by the three performers is engaging, warm and refined, each equally prominent at the right moments in these pages, in a flawless recording.
Gino Tanasini, Il Giornale

A CD to Rediscover Cilea's Masterpieces
…a recording project featuring a young Genoese trio deserves attention… the three artists have recorded four chamber works by Francesco Cilea for Agorà: the Sonata Op. 38 for cello and piano, "Tre Pezzi" Op. 43 for cello and piano, the Trio in D major, and the Suite in E major for violin and piano… the Genoese trio delivered first-rate performances, bringing out the melodic richness and the elegance of the harmonic writing. A beautiful sound, close-knit ensemble playing with intelligent expressive choices: a fine achievement…
Roberto Iovino, La Stampa

Rare Pages by Cilea on a Classy CD
A disc devoted to Francesco Cilea: three Genoese performers have recently recorded a monographic CD dedicated not to the best-known operatic pages of the verismo composer (who spent the last years of his life at his villa in Varazze) — such as Adriana Lecouvreur or L'Arlesiana — but to his chamber music output. Produced by the Agorà label, the recording presents pieces for violin, cello and piano composed over the long and unusual creative span of this Calabrian-born composer…
Giorgio De Martino, Il Secolo XIX

MUZIO CLEMENTI
Sonatas for Piano with Violin Accompaniment, Vol. I
Anfossi, Vassilev. Rivo Alto CRR 9812. 61'33".

Clementi's precocious talent turned early on, and with fine results, toward piano composition, beginning with his sonata in A-flat major, fitting for one of the most imposing pianistic figures of the years straddling the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To him goes the immense credit of having taught the genius of Bonn, and of having influenced, through the sonatas of his Op. 12, some of the fundamental stylistic traits of his young pupil's earliest piano sonatas. This CD presents three sonatas from Op. 3, composed by Clementi in 1779, all structured in two rather brilliant movements still distantly indebted to the galant style inherited from J.C. Bach. In these first three sonatas the performers offer a fine interpretation… never overindulging in passionate Romantic excess.
Andrea Giovanni Lucchi, CD Classica

Drawing-Room Pages
Having listened to this first selection from the vast output in this genre by Muzio Clementi — a composer until now associated exclusively with piano music — one senses that the form is still in its early stages, though the style is already clearly heading toward more substantial composition. As with Clementi (much as with the early Mozartian collections), the old designation "Sonata with Violin Accompaniment" still applies, and it likewise holds true, in the three-movement works — here the first two Sonatas of Op. 13 — that the central movement (Larghetto affettuoso and Larghetto) is entrusted to the piano alone, expressing itself in gallant lyrical confessions… this amiably drawing-room character, with short melodies and clearly distinct expressive registers… it is a delightful, unpretentious listen that makes for pure enjoyment.
Angelo Foletto, Suonare

"...With the critical rigor that distinguishes him, Anfossi firmly rejects this approach, instead highlighting the closeness to the almost Biedermeier style of J.C. Bach — rendered very well, moreover, in his performance… A truly unmissable disc…
"...Anfossi, Vassilev and Glavina are perfectly at ease with these texts of extraordinary formal elegance and astonishing melodic richness; the musicians' genuine enjoyment comes through clearly…"
"...Anfossi's touch, that of a refined interpreter, has the depth of the nineteenth-century piano… as can be heard beautifully whenever the score allows him to expand into adagios and slow tempos. Of course, when Bolling calls for jazz, the Carlo Felice Quartet doesn't hold back, and indeed delivers a thoroughly respectable swing passage… a recording that is flawless in its clarity, in the balance of the instruments, and in the richness of its dynamics. A magnificent achievement, and one that deserves success…"
Giovanni Choukhadarian, The Mellophonium

"...a Genoese ensemble has recorded a new CD dedicated to the artist from Cannes. The Classic Jazz Quartet performs the 'Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio,' dedicated to the Korean cellist Yo-Yo Ma. It is an interesting and enjoyable reinterpretation of the Baroque suite… The Genoese group's reading is notable for its expressive taste and technical authority…"
Roberto Iovino, La Stampa

"...this Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio, written for cellist Yo-Yo Ma and performed here with close-knit verve by the Carlo Felice Theatre's Classic Jazz Quartet… An excellent showing by these young Ligurian musicians, with the truly first-rate cello tone of Giulio Glavina standing out, though all the performers contribute with great flair. Massimo Anfossi's pianism is fluid, equally at ease in the improvised passages, while Dario Doriani's percussion colors are very refined…"
Gino Tanasini, Suonare