Taking its name from the Etruscan word for the area around Bologna, Italy, Felsina is a love letter from American composer-pianist David Salvage to his adoptive city. By turns tender and irreverent, fanciful and sober, Salvage takes the listener on excursions around the city, into the surrounding countryside, and back into distant time periods, casting this ancient city’s richness and depth into sound. Salvage’s playing style is simple and direct, drawing the listener into his musical world: a Bologna observed, lived, and imagined.

Felsina: music for solo piano by David Salvage
performed by the composer

Felsina: music for solo piano by David Salvage (DXL 1186) Digital Booklet

1) The Alabaster Windows of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (3:02)
2) The Horses of Via delle Belle Arti (2:02)
3) Overheard in Santo Stefano (1:29)
4) The Bird at Pilate’s Basin (1:20)
5) Recitativo quasi secco: Homo Neanderthalensis Weeping (1:40)
6) Urna biconica (2:20)
7) Riecco la primavera (1:10)
8) Dall’orto se ne vien (1:52)
9) David’s Version (3:17)
10) Portici (2:00)
11) The Trees in Piazza Puntoni (2:47)
12) Aldrovandi Woodcut (1:13)
13) Doctor Balanzone Tells Us How Things Are (1:36)
14) Muro di graffiti (00:55)
15) Dottore! (00:44)

Three Winter Gardens
16) I. Palazzo Hercolani (2:00)
17) II. Palazzo d’Accursio (2:29)
18) III. The Museum of Music (4:15)

19) Canale inferno (3:30)

Tre quadri di Giorgio Morandi )
20) I) Natura morta (2:32)
21) II) Fiori (1:40)
22) III) Paesaggio (2:32)

23) Nebbia / Torre dell’orologio (3:24)
24) Idea for a Barcarole (2:38)
25) Linea meridiana (6:17)

Cover art: “Portici in Via Saragozza”, Ivan Dimitrov

David Salvage (b. 1978) is an American composer and pianist who lives in Bologna, Italy. He has composed for orchestra, film, choir, and ensembles of all kinds and has received over a hundred performances at venues ranging from the Juilliard School to the British Institute of Florence. His music can be as familiar as songs you’ve heard a thousand times or as strange as the latest musical novelty. What he strives for is not so much stylistic consistency as a faithfulness to human experience in all its variety.