Especially Brilliant in Music and Vision 17 February

ESPECIALLY BRILLIANT An evening of piano music from Giuseppe Andaloro, heard by GIUSEPPE PENNISI I seldom report about chamber music concerts in Italy because, rightly or wrongly, I feel that an international audience may not be interested unless I deal with events which are part of a larger tour or feature internationally-known artists. This the case with Giuseppe Andaloro (now thirty years old) who has been performing in Italy and abroad for the last sixteen years and already has a few recordings in his bag. He has won several international piano competitions (Hong Kong, London, Naples) and has been building an impressive résumé over the past few years, performing also in Asia and the UK. On 7 February 2013, in Rome's Teatro Argentina, as part of the yearly season of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, he gave a quite unusual and sophisticated evening recital of piano music. The Accademia is one of the oldest private institutions in the Italian capital; it was established in 1821 by a group of young aristocratic music lovers and has been operating since then with programs that marry innovation and experimentalism with tradition. Giuseppe Andoloro. Click on the image for higher resolution Andaloro's program suited this objective fully as it included short pieces by six very different composers ranging from the sixteenth century to the present day. As a matter of fact, the program also presented the world premiere of a piano work commissioned by the Accademia itself from one of the most promising Italian composers, Marcello Filotei, whose compositions are often heard not only in Italy but also in Austria and Germany. Marcello Filotei. Photo © Simone Pierfelice. Click on the image for higher resolution We heard Girolamo Frescobaldi, Olivier Messiaen, Marcello Filotei, Béla Bartók, György Ligeti and Franz Liszt, in this order. Of course, Andaloro only played a small piece or a few small pieces from each composer. What was the red line giving sense to the program? Why, for example, Frescobaldi? At the time (1583-1643), the piano had yet to be invented and most of the composer's music was for the voice. The link was that all the pieces had been composed in the early stages of the professional lives of each composer. The only exception was Filotei's Resistere? Il Suono che Rimane, because the composer is about forty-five. Frescobaldi's Sei Partite sopra la Follia is clearly a delicate piano transcription of a baroque vocal score. Messiaen's Preludes pour Piano are quintessential French twentieth century. With Bartók's Suite 0p 14 and Ligeti's Capriccio Nos 1 and 2 we are still in the twentieth century but in a different musical universe. With Liszt's Années de Pélerinage we're in full Romanticism. And Filotei's Resistere. Il suono che rimane? has the sense of a revolution for a cause. Giuseppe Andoloro performing in recital during the preliminary round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth, Texas, USA on 21 May 2005. Photo © 2005 Rodger Mallison. Click on the image for higher resolution Andaloro's hands covered the entire keyboard, up and down at full speed and volume, but he never lost track of his sense of musicianship. He created expressive music at the extremes of the instrument, and he was especially brilliant playing the music of Bartók. Copyright © 17 February 2013 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy GIROLAMO FRESCOBALDI OLIVIER MESSIAEN BELA BARTOK GYOERGY LIGETI FRANZ LISZT ROME ITALY PIANO MUSIC << Music & Vision home Macbeth >>