Who would have thought that the principal source for the music of Padre Antonio Soler was still waiting to be discovered? The manuscript acquired by the Morgan Library of New York in 2011 has proved to be the richest extant collection of sonatas by Soler; 29 of them are unpublished. For his first recording on harmonia mundi, the young harpsichordist Diego Ares reminds us of the powerful impression the composer made on a grandee of Spain in 1765: ‘Fray Antonio Soler produces finer sonatas from day to day.’ Listening to this disc, one cannot but agree: each sonata is indeed a world unto itself.
"I felt it was the best way to express my gratitude for the opportunity I have been given here to share these wonderful pieces. They reveal to us the pupil of Scarlatti, the ‘scolare dil Sr. Scarlati’; and whether they transport us to the streets of Madrid, evoke the carillon he played on feast days, or hold us spellbound with his harpsichord in the intimate environment of his cell, the sonatas of Antonio Soler, radiant with light and joy, really do seem to emanate from a sun, that ‘Sol de mi fortuna’!" Diego Ares [from his excellent booklet note]
Diego Ares was born in 1983 and studied the piano with Alis Jurgelionis and Aldona Dvarionaité and the harpsichord with Pilar Cancio, Richard Egarr, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and Jesper B. Christensen. The harpsichord maker Joel Katzman, the pianist László Gyimesi, the harpsichordists Rafael Puyana and Genoveva Gálvez, and study of historical recordings have guided his work and his research.
Diego Ares appears in concert throughout Europe, chiefly in Switzerland, Spain, Germany, France and Benelux; he also performs in Japan. He began making recordings in 2006, and his two most recent releases on Pan Classics, devoted to Soler and Scarlatti, were both highly acclaimed by the press (Diapason d’Or, Excepcional in Scherzo magazine).

World premiere recording

“played with unimpeachable virtuosity and musicianship by Diego Ares…what makes this recital all the more pleasurable is that Ares plays these works as a continuous sequence: once you start you are in for the duration, and very compelling and enlightening it is too” Classical Ear