Born a little after Mozart in 1760 and dead a little before Beethoven in 1822, composer and organist Gaetano Valeri spent his life at the organ and in Padua: first at the Basilica del Carmine, then at the town's cathedral, where he would, in 1805, become choirmaster. And if in the meantime he wrote two quasi-operas: well, what Italian composer could resist? The lion's share of his work was for the church: dozens of hymns, psalms, masses, litanies, motets, responses: all written for liturgy. In terms of instrumental music, he nevertheless wrote 23 symphonies, pieces for piano, and an especially impressive corpus of work for the organ. Here are his collected works, or at least those works which have survived. The listener will note that the majority of these pieces are sonatas for the organ which are more or less written in one movement, like Scarlatti or Soler, even if Valeri's language may otherwise seem closer to that of Mozart or Haydn - with a little purely melodic work and a simplified accompaniment which characterises the quintessence of the Italian style. But we are left wondering how this man, who never left Padua in his life, was able to so immerse himself in a style of writing from far-away Vienna, and in such a charming way! © SM/Qobuz