The Italian composer Gian Francesco Malipiero, despite considering the piano his ‘strange enemy’, created a highly individual body of works for the instrument, exploring its most beautiful sonorities. These five contrasting early collections range from the deliberately archaic idiom of the Tre danze antiche to the quirky humour of the Cavalcate (‘Rides’ on a donkey, a camel and a fiery charger), via the resonating bell-sounds of Risonanze and the gentle autumnal melancholy of the Preludi autunnali. The powerful Poemetti lunari, a struggle between a world of radiant beauty and forces bent on its destruction, are regarded as Malipiero’s first truly personal creation.