Charlie Williams, piano.
Recorded live at the 3Arts Club of Chicago on January 20, 2003.

piano 'solo' in the evening consists of four character pieces: the first is an improvisatory prelude referencing styles or material used in the other three movements; the second a playful and witty scherzo, delightful in its unpredictability; the third a beautifully resonant nocturne, and the last marked "homage to Scott Joplin: a conventional ragtime."

Of this composition the composer says "Art should be free, an artist should not be a prisoner of 'isms', he should be able to do anything that he want to do, regardless-- providing it is done properly and sincerely. So this was my 'credo' since I was young... Piano 'solo', so I imagine it, is music for a lonesome pianist to be playing in some silent evening, played to himself. The truth is that such a composition was meant as a little stone to the piano literature, nothing more than this, and be played by whom like it."

Antonio Bibalo was born 1922 in Trieste, Italy. As a young man his mother wanted him to become a concert pianist, so he kept his early compositions secret. At the end of World War II, he lived through a 40-day massacre in Trieste, in June and July of 1945 when resistance fighters' de facto policy held that anyone who "spoke Italian was automatically a Fascist."

Bibalo studied piano and composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, graduating in 1946. It was a time when, as he says, "no one cared about anything." He taught himself to play jazz and began a concert career, but later declined professional management because he "disliked performing" in a professional setting. When a friend told him he had made the worst mistake of his life, his reply was: "No, I've made the best mistake of my life! Now I will be completely and fully a composer." After a 1956 holiday in Norway, he moved there and became a citizen in 1968. His output for the piano has been concentrated completely in the periods 1955-57 and 1974-77; thus piano 'solo' in the evening, written in 1977, is still his most recent piano work.

Prelude: piano 'solo' in the evening


Puck: "Thou speak'st aright, I am the merry wanderer of the night!"


Nocturne: Lullaby for the Earth


filmstar with a golden cigaretteholder: a conventional ragtime (homage to Scott Joplin)