What do you think of every time you hear the words “Italian music”? Is it the three tenors or memorable “Libiamo” from “Traviata”, Adriano Celentano of the omnipresent theme from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”? Or Puccini, San-Remo, etc?

A prominent violinist Roman Mints always thinks outside the box: he keeps searching for unknown. His new programme “The Other Italy” is in the wake of his earlier programmes, “Russian” and “French”. “The Other Italy” showcases violin sonatas of Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), and Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975). It is very strange that such subtle, strikingly beautiful compositions are really “leftovers”, not staples of violin repertoire. Really, this music is completely DIFFERENT.

Expressionist sadeness of Respighi is coupled with Nabokov-esque Busoni. And Luigi Dallapiccola is one of the most underestimated of the three. His “Tartiniana Seconda”, written in 1956, is a tribute to old masters’ partitas and suites; its parts – pastoral, bourrée, sarabanda – are engaged in a dialogue with the predecessors who lived 300 years ago. They talk to the past from the new changed Italy. From the OTHER Italy.