Commissioned by the Florentine association "La Stanza Accanto", which since 2009 has been offering moral, spiritual and psychological support to parents who have prematurely lost a child, "Io e Te", the new single for piano solo by the composer and pianist Paolo Cognetti is a song about sentiment par excellence, love, in all its extraordinary, and sometimes underestimated, complexity.

«Love is the feeling that more than any other puts us face to face with the relational nature of our existence, highlighting the theme of the Other, be it a child, a sister, a wife, a friend or even a part of ourselves. Love is a path in which we must always find new points of equilibrium. Think of a tightrope walker and how easy and natural what he does seems at first sight; but if we look carefully, we realise how every muscle of his body is continuously and in coordination contracting or relaxing, just like equilibrium, i.e., it is not a static fact, but a dynamic one: one is not in equilibrium, but rather at equilibrium.» (Paolo Cognetti)

This piece, just under 8 minutes long, tries to express with a small musical metaphor, through successive sections of various characters and intensities, the paradigmatic sense of a story, with all its beauty but also all its difficulties: there are bright points but also dark ones, those in which we feel strong and those in which we are blown over by problems, times that flow smoothly and those that jitter. In this way love becomes an even broader metaphor for life, or even, perhaps, life itself in its greatest form.

The single's cover, designed by Rosaria Mottola, in her third collaboration with Paolo Cognetti, using the image of interweaving hands brings together the overall meaning of the musical composition with the collaborative ideal that inspires the work of the "La Stanza Accanto" association. The leaves also evoke the world of nature, our original home, through the myth of Eden, the archetype of a life in peace, harmony and balance with the world, whose echo, however distant, can still comfort and guide our actions when relating with others.

The animated video, conceived and created by Costanza Ciattini and Rudy Faletra, further explores these themes by showing the journey of a hand that, along its way full of obstacles and fantastic events, encounters natural elements such as leaves, flowers, birds and other animals. It then comes across another, similar hand, which provides support and accompanies it to rediscover itself along a path of change and rebirth, which emphasizes the fundamental importance of relationships with the world and with others.

Paolo Cognetti performed "Io e Te" for the first time in Florence on 30th November 2019, in the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte for a charity evening organised by the "La Stanza Accanto" association where the proceeds were partly donated to “The Precious Hand Onlus” in order to purchase an ultrasound scanner at the Todome children's hospital (Togo), and partly to support families in difficulty.