Stefano Grondona writes: “In those years at the turn of the new millennium, neither Aldo Ciccolini nor I would ever have imagined that the recordings we were making would have to wait so long before they were made available to the public. They ended, in fact, by becoming my posthumous tribute to the great pianist, as well as to the friend that Aldo was for me. ‘You deal with it’, Aldo used to say when we spoke about the destiny of these pioneering performances, a courageous challenge to draw together our respective individual musical worlds, both of us prompted simply by a common understanding and the knowledge of a mutual trust in each other’s artistic sensitivity. A challenge that Aldo wished to bravely take up, to approach my guitar with the curious flexibility that marked his way of making music and especially of tackling the most extreme repertoires.”