dicembre 2023 – ChristopherAxworthy
10 articoli pubblicati da ChristopherAxworthyMusicCommentary durante December 2023
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ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary
An opening concert for 2024 with a young maths and statistics undergraduate from Harvard University ready to give exemplary performances of major works from the piano repertoire.

St Mary’s never fails to surprise,delight and astonish as they offer a platform to a category that is never mentioned in the mass media.

Young musicians ready to dedicate their youth to the pursuit of sharing beauty and the discovery of a better world after years of single minded dedication.

Harvey Lin was just such a case as he demonstrated with superbly crafted music making of intelligence and love.

A Bach Italian concerto that was played with aristocratic authority as his sparkling non legato touch illuminated the Allegro with a rhythmic drive and delicately contrasted passages that passed from the tutti to the solo – as in his introduction where he had so eloquently described it from one manual to another.There was a languid beauty to the Andante – quasi religious as he said – with the sudden stillness of the coda that was indeed of another world.Even the presto finale was of a grandeur and joie de vivre that was played with exhilaration and exultation.

The Chopin B flat minor Sonata was also played with intelligence and beauty where even the return to the introduction – much debated by some – made such sense in his hands.An occasional added bass note just gave depth to the sound which was full but never hard and the beautiful second subject was played with real weight digging deep into the keys to extract the beauty that lay within.The opening treacherous left hand was just a wash of sound on which the wafts of melody were floated and that with the majestic opening would be transformed into a development section of nobility and grandeur.

The Scherzo was played with great authority and simplicity with the trio that could have been played with less searching for hidden counterpoints but with the same direct simplicity.There was a relentless sense of pulse in the Funeral March and a trio that this time was played with simple beautiful eloquence.The ‘wind blowing over the graves’ in the last movement was played with transcendental control and a sense of line that also gave it great shape as it weaved it’s way to the final majestic chords.

Mozart’s last Sonata was played with eloquence,clarity and charm.I would not have tried to vary the repeated passages but would have let them speak with the same eloquence with which Harvey’s superb natural musicianship had imbued all that he touched.I think he may have been just obediently following advice from lesser mortals!

There was a chiselled beauty to the Adagio where the echo effect he strived for in my opinion was not part of the musical conversation that in his sensitive hands could be so eloquent.The Allegretto was delicately graceful and brilliantly played ,full of sparkling wit.

The Kapustin Jazz Etude was played with astonishing brilliance and drive.A superb lesson of a perpetuum mobile in jazz style played with technical brilliance and style.

The Liebermann Gargoyles I have only heard once before and it is a collection of four contrasting pieces of great effect.There was the dynamic drive in continual movement of the first.The luminosity and atmospheric slowly moving melodic line of the second followed by wondrous aeolian harp like sounds of the third on which was floated a melody of radiance and beauty.But it was the final savagely driven toccata that Harvey played with superb technical control and conviction that brought this opening concert of 2024 to a scintillating end.

Harvey Lin is a pianist based in London and a second-year undergraduate at Harvard University studying maths and statistics. Making his concerto debut aged 12, he is a two-time finalist of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, and a prize-winner at the Enschede (2022), Euregio (2022), and Neapolitan Masters (2020) International Piano Competitions. He was also the winner of the Windsor and Maidenhead Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition (2018) and a semi-finalist in the ‘Nutcracker’ International Competition, Russia (2015), which was broadcast on the ‘Russia-Kultura’ channel on Russian national TV.

Harvey has collaborated with the East Netherlands, Reading, and Harvard-Radcliffe Symphony Orchestras and has performed at the Royal Albert Hall (Elgar Room), Steinway Hall (London), St John’s College (Cambridge), Queen’s College (Oxford), and the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Harvey has also participated in Music@Menlo, Oxford Piano Festival, and Northern Chords Festival, and was selected as a Tabor Piano Ambassador for the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021. This summer, he was awarded a fellowship to Aspen Music Festival, where he studied with Professor Arie Vardi and Professor Hung-Kuan Chen, of the Hochschule für Musik Hannover and the Juilliard School respectively. His principal mentor is Boris Petrushansky of the Imola Music Academy, Italy.

Lowell Liebermann born February 22, 1961, in New York City

At the age of sixteen, Liebermann performed at Carnegie Hall playing his Piano Sonata, op. 1. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music with David Diamond and Vincent Persichetti earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. The English composer-pianist Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabjialso expressed interest in Liebermann’s early work, having critiqued the young composer’s Piano Sonata in a private exchange between the two; Liebermann’s Concerto for Piano, op. 12 would be dedicated to Sorabji.His most recorded works are his Sonata for Flute and Piano (1987), Gargoyles for piano (1989), and his Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (1992). Liebermann resides in New York City. He presently serves on the composition faculty at Mannes College The New School for Music and is the director of the Mannes American Composers Ensemble.

Gargoyles, Op. 29, a four-movement suite for solo piano written in 1989.

The suite was commissioned by the Tcherepnin Society for the pianist Eric Himy , who played its world premiere that October 14 at Alice Tully Hall in New York City.

The score exemplifies Liebermann’s modernist style, in which tonal harmony and expressive gestures grounded in tradition coexist with avant-garde procedures. The piece has become one of Liebermann’s most popular efforts, receiving more than ten recordings.

Many cathedral gargoyles portray grotesque faces with great humor, and Liebermann intends precisely that in his pieces, which have the mordant wit of Prokofiev’s “bad boy” style in their ancestry. The brief opening movement commences with an arresting three-note “signal” and move forward with perpetual motion rhythms , the narrative studded with shock-effects. The following Adagio semplice, by contrast, is deeply introverted, presenting melancholy melodizing over patterns based on two alternating chords. Later, a still slower melody unfolds against repetitions of a single note. Crystalline sonorities mark the third Gargoyle which floats a songful theme over luminous liquid swirls, and ultimately develops into a duet. Mordancy and menace return in the finale, which is dominated by demonic galloping rhythms, as textures grow steadily more dense and virtuoso gestures steadily more flamboyant.

Although born in the Ukraine when he was age four, with his father fighting in World War II, his mother and grandmother moved with him and his sister to the Kyrgyz city of Tokmak.He composed his first piano sonata at age 13.From age 14, Kapustin studied piano with Avrelian Rubakh ( a pupil of Felix Blumenfeld , who also taught Simon Barere and Horowitz ). Beginning in 1954, he discovered jazz , an interest which his teacher supported.Kapustin studied from 1956 with Alexander Goldenweiser at the Moscow Conservatory , graduating ,playing amongst other things Prokofiev’s 2nd Concerto in 1961.During the 1950’s , Kapustin acquired a reputation as a jazz pianist, arranger and composer. He had his own quintet, which performed at an “upscale restaurant” monthly.Kapustin regarded himself though as a composer rather than a jazz musician: “I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I’m not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisations are written, of course, and they became much better; it improved them.”

Among his works are 20 piano sonatas , six piano concertos other instrumental concertos, sets of piano variations ,etudes and concert studies.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen violin George Xiaoyuan Fu piano

A duo recital in the true sense of the word with a musical conversation between equals.

A Mozart Sonata of refined elegance and operatic energy.The opening Largo was played with coquettish simplicity before bursting into an Allegro of scintillating playful energy. There was great delicacy from the piano in the Andante as the violin played with ever more intensity.The elegance and mellifluous sounds were mirrored in a performance where they played as one.It was a tribute to the pianist’s musicianship and technical prowess that with the piano lid fully open there was never a moment when the sound of this great black beast could have overpowered the beauty,musical line and sweetness of tone of Tamsin’s Stradivarius.

The revelation of the evening though was the UK premiere of ‘Swan Song’ by Serkin’s grandson David Ludwig.The charm and persuasion of George Fu are such as to persuade Tamsin to include a long contemporary work in an important London concert.David Ludwig had been George’s composition teacher at Curtis and obviously it was he who had persuaded her of the importance of the work.A work of startling technical and musical complexity with cruel demands on both players who managed to play with a clarity and sense of architectural shape that revealed a work of great effect and beauty.The magic luminosity from the piano at the opening allowed the violin to soar above such gossamer sounds with long drawn out musical lines.There were dramatic contrasts with the piano creating clouds of sound even with a little help from inside its own body.An elaborate cadenza for solo violin lead to the appearance from afar of the Schubert Fantasy that had been the composers inspiration.Tamsin rose magnificently to the gauntlet that George had lain before her and with superb control and revelatory imagination placed an important work in the midst of the other two recognised masterpieces in her recital.

Beethoven’s ‘Bridgetower’ Sonata …better known by it’s final dedicatee’s name ‘Kreutzer’ filled the second half of the concert with magnificence of grandeur and dynamic rhythmic energy .There were moments of sublime beauty but these were but the calm before the storm.An aristocratic control over this cauldron of boiling energy as they played with perfect ensemble each artist listening to the other creating an architectural whole united as they both were for the glory of the music that had been entrusted to them.There was a simple beauty to the Andante and variations that was allowed to flow so naturally giving them the freedom to shape and mould each variation with a flexibility of pulse and beguiling sense of style.The delicacy of the first variation with the violin just commenting of the marvels that were being revealed from the piano.Followed by the delicately shaped ‘leggermente’ filigree jeux perlé from the violin.The almost too pompous minor variation was contrasted with the luminous fluidity of the major IV variation.There was finally a glimpse of the sublime beauty that had been hinted at as they were united in the magical final bars that gradually finished with whispered intent at the extremes of both instruments.Suddenly the call to arms and the chase was on as the Finale ,Presto burst upon the scene with dynamic driving energy.This was a performance of technical and musical mastery from both players and gave a monumental finish to an evening of remarkable music making of humility ,intelligence and mastery.

‘Après une rève ‘ was offered as an encore and as Tamsin said :’a much needed balm after such dynamism‘.It was played with ravishing sounds of quiet intensity where Mr Stradivarius was allowed the wings to soar into places where only music can reach.George at the piano with fearless backing that gave great depth and spiritual meaning to the wings with which Tamsin had now been bestowed.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Violin Sonata in B flat K454 (1784)

I. Largo – Allegro

I I. Andante

III. Allegretto

David Ludwig (b.1974)

Swan Song (2013) UK première

Interval

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Op. 47 ‘Kreutzer’ (1802-3)

I. Adagio sostenuto – Presto

I I. Andante con variazioni

III. Finale. Presto

Violin Sonata No. 32 in B flat K .454 was composed in Vienna on April 21, 1784. It was published by Christoph Torricella in a group of three sonatas (together with the piano sonatas K.284 and K.333 )

The sonata was written for a violin virtuoso Regina Strinasacchi of Mantua to be performed by them together at a concert in the Karntnerthor Theatre in Vienna on April 29, 1784.

‘We now have here the famous Strinasacchi from

Mantua,’ Mozart wrote to his father on 24 April 1784,

‘a very good violinist. She has a great deal of taste and

feeling in her playing. I am this moment composing a

sonata which we are going to play together on

Thursday at her concert in the theatre.’

Although Mozart had the piano part securely in his head, he did not give himself enough time to write it out, and thus it was performed with a sheet of blank music paper in front of him in order to fool the audience. According to a story told by his widow Constanze Mozart , the Emperor Joseph II saw the empty sheet music through his opera glasses and sent for the composer with his manuscript, at which time Mozart had to confess the truth, although that is likely to have amazed the monarch rather than cause his irritation.

Of this piece, dating

from 2013, he has written as follows:

‘Swan Song is one of three pieces of mine that draw

directly from the materials of a past musical work, in

this case Schubert’s Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C

major, D. 934. I felt like I was writing a play with many

characters who are having separate conversations

about the same piece of music.

‘The work models Schubert in weaving in and out of

a chain of related passages that linked together form

a fantasy, playing for a little over 15 minutes. The

opening passage appears several times throughout

the piece, each time a little different (but always

sparkling!), as if transformed by all of the music

preceding it. In between are fast passages with quick

exchanges between violinist and pianist, music in the

extremes of volume and register, and many little

games and conversations with Schubert.

‘There are many characters, with their exits and

their entrances, each making a statement and then

stepping back for the next to take centre stage. At

one point, Schubert himself makes a brief

appearance, but he is a phantom who emerges into

the light and returns to the background as quickly as

he appeared. Finally, after increasingly fast music that

seems to plough headlong into a brusque ending,

hope appears, rising toward a resolution of the quiet

questions asked in the first twinkling sonorities of the

piece.’

The sonata was originally dedicated to the violinist George Bridgetower m (1778–1860) as “Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer [Bridgetower], gran pazzo e compositore mulattico” (Mulatto Sonata composed for the mulatto Brischdauer, great madman mulatto composer). Shortly after completion the work was premiered by Bridgetower and Beethoven on 24 May 1803 at the Augarten Theatre at a concert that started at the unusually early hour of 8:00 am. Bridgetower sight-read the sonata; he had never seen the work before, and there had been no time for any rehearsal.

After the premiere performance, Beethoven and Bridgetower fell out: while the two were drinking, Bridgetower apparently insulted the morals of a woman whom Beethoven cherished. Enraged, Beethoven removed the dedication of the piece, dedicating it instead to Rodolphe Kreutzer , who was considered the finest violinist of the day.

After its successful premiere in 1803, the work was published in 1805 as Beethoven’s Op. 47, with its re-dedication to Rudolphe kreitzer , which gave the composition its nickname. Kreutzer never performed the work, considering it “outrageously unintelligible”. He did not particularly care for any of Beethoven’s music, and they only ever met once, briefly.

George Xiaoyuan Fu at the Wigmore Hall with feats of musical trickery and mastery

Stephen Kovacevich Mastery and Mystery at St Mary’s with Tamsin Whaley-Cohen

Their biographies are included in these previous articles .Tamsin plays the ex Laurand Feneves Strad

La Musica unisce

In collaborazione con Keyboard Charitable Trust

Evelyne Berezovsky seduction in Rome

Evelyne Beresovsky after the success of her concert last year, having stood in for her colleague and childhood friend Alexander Ullman ,was invited back to given a special concert dedicated to Rachmaninov and Stravinsky .Not only playing solo works but also two chamber music works with two superb musicians from the Roma 3 Orchestra .

Daniele Sabatini ,the Roman violinist ,winner of many prestigious prizes together with his duo partner the pianist Simone Rugani .

Martina Biondi is one of the finest Italian cellists of her generation who lives and works in Berlin .

We know and have heard on many occasions the solo playing of Evelyne Beresovsky and today she was to shine in works by Rachmaninov and the ‘Firebird’ by Stravinsky in the famous transcription by Agosti (1928)

The surprise was her total commitment to chamber music and how she could blend in and shape the music with her colleagues .The gently throbbing chords of the violin and cello at the opening of the early Rachmaninov ‘Elegiac’ Trio was the stage set for the Eagle that was to swoop onto the scene with chiselled sounds of nostalgic beauty from the hands of Evelyne .Cascades of notes too that were like streams of gold creating sounds that accompanied the passionate outpourings from the two string players.

Playing in unison or solo Evelyne was always there listening and supporting with rich romantic sounds that never overpowered her fellow companions united in the turbulent youthful outpouring of romantic effusions.Deeply moving was the desolate atmosphere created at the end by the ‘cello and violin with the piano recalling what had passed with such poignant beauty and nostalgia.

Martina and Evelyne returned to play together Stravinsky’s ‘Suite Italienne’where the beauty of Piatigorsky’s arrangement was played by Martina with ravishing playing of restrained passion.Evelyne too played not only with spiky rhythmic spirit but also with extraordinary ease and perfect ensemble.After only a day to work together it was a ‘tour de force ‘ of musicianship from two artists who were listening with chameleonic care to each other.

Of course this is the intent of Valerio Vicari,artistic director of Roma Tre Orchestra.To allow his superb players not only to play in the orchestra together but also to play in chamber ensembles where the same participation will continue into the larger orchestra ensemble.This had been amply demonstrated to us in Rome by Sir Antony Pappano when he took over command of the renowned S.Cecilia Orchestra .Creating chamber music ensembles with the very fine components of the orchestra ,playing the piano with them too,creating an orchestra that listens to itself.Sir Antony now bequeathes to Rome one of the great orchestra of the world after almost twenty years at their helm.

Evelyne brought ravishing sounds and a superb sense of style to the Preludes and Etudes – Tableaux that she had chosen to play. Some things cannot be taught and are part of the genes of pianists like Evelyne or dare I say Martha Argerich.A freedom where everything they play is fresh and newly minted as though discovered in that very moment .Both are well known for their human qualities where life,friendships and caring human relationships take precedence over hours spent locked away at the keyboard .It is a God given gift that Evelyne like her famous colleague has been endowed with from early training.Endowed with a technique that encourages a kaleidoscopic sense of colour from fingers of steel but wrists of rubber ( as Agosti used to say) ,A sense of touch that was encouraged and nurtured from a very early age added of course to a natural talent that is of the blessed few.

The Andante Cantabile of op 23 n.4 was played with the freedom of Belcanto as the balance between her hands was so delicate and sensitive . A beguiling seductive rubato to op 23 n.6 in E flat with its insinuating subtle colouring was followed by the dynamic drive to the G minor op 23 n.5. Alla Marcia indeed it was with overpowering sonorities never hard or ungrateful but the full sounds of Philadelphia proportions.Op 23 n.8 was a whirlwind of moving harmonies as the spider web of gossamer notes spun from Evelyne’s ever flexible fingers.

It was to the second set of Preludes that Evelyne chose the ravishing beauty of n. 5 in G major to close this selection .It was played with a fluidity and luminosity the same that I remember from the hands of Dame Moura Lympany who had played it for us in Rome at the end of a long and illustrious career before the Russians were allowed to travel to the west and astonish us even more.

Two Etude – Tableaux ignited the piano with the call to arms of truly orchestral proportions of op 33 n.6 in E flat .Allegro con fuoco indeed it was today and was a preparation for the fireworks that were to come with Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’.This was followed by the most Romantic of all these miniature tone poems op 39 n. 5 in E flat minor with it’s sumptuous melodic outpouring and tumultuous climax only to withdraw into the desolate intimacy that was Rachmaninov’s heritage.

There was some confusion over the programme that announced ‘Love’s Sorrow’ which is more often referred to as ‘Liebesleid’ by Kreisler in the arrangement of his friend and duo partner Rachmaninov.There is the famous story of the Kreisler/Rachmaninov duo playing in Carnegie Hall.Kreisler momentarily lost his place and whispered to his partner:’Where are we?’…..‘Carnegie Hall’ growled Rachmaninov without battling an eyelid!

Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen (Old Viennese Melodies ) is a set of three short pieces for violin and piano composed by Austrian-American violinist Fritz Kreisler . The three pieces are titled Liebesfreud (Love’s Joy), Liebesleid (Love’s Sorrow), and Schön Rosmarin (Lovely Rosemary).Liebesfreud and Liebesleid, were the subject of virtuoso transcriptions for solo piano by Kreisler’s friend Rachmaninov in 1931 who also recorded them.Here is the master Kreisler himself playing with the same charm as we heard today from Evelyne Beresovsky (https://youtube.com/watch?v=AqQ2_2qd-5Y&feature=shared)

An astonishing opening to Agosti’s ‘Firebird’ transcription had us sitting on the edge of our seats before the gentle sounds bathed in pedal of the Berceuse.The appearance of the Firebird is always a magic moment whether in the original orchestral version or from the magical hands of Evelyne in Agosti’s quite remarkable transcription for solo piano.Solo piano it might be but like the feats of Liszt and Thalberg they defy one to believe that only two hands and two feet could multiply as if by magic.It is of course the pedal and a sense of illusion that can be created by those with the technique and imagination to turn a box of hammers and strings into a full orchestra.Evelyne demonstrated today that she is just such a magician at the keyboard.

Two encores for an enthusiastic audience who wanted even more music.With Evelyne’s disarming humility and charm she announced she would play again the beautiful prelude op 32 n.5 and this was followed by Grieg’s Butterfly that she allowed to hover above the keyboard with the jeux perle charm and style of pianists of another age.

Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor was written on January 18–21, 1892 in Moscow, when the composer was 18 years old. The work was first performed on January 30 of the same year with the composer at the piano, David Kreyn at the violin and Anatoliy Brandukov at the cello.[1] It waited until 1947 for the first edition to appear, and the trio has no designated opus number. Rachmaninoff wrote a second Elegiac piano trio in 1893 after the death of Tchaikovsky.

This work is cast in only one movement, in contrast to most piano trios, which have three or four. This movement is in the classical form of a sonata,[2] but the exposition is built on twelve episodes that are symmetrically represented in the recapitulation. The elegiac theme is presented in the first part Lento lugubre by the piano. In the following parts, the elegy is presented by the cello and violin, while the spirit is constantly evolving (più vivo – con anima – appassionato – tempo rubato – risoluto). The theme is ultimately recast as a funeral march.

Despite his youth, Rachmaninoff shows in the virtuoso piano part his ability to cover a wide spectrum of sound colors. This trio has a distinctive connection to Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor, both in the unusual, expanded first movement, and in the funeral march as a conclusion.

The suggestion often heard – that the first trio is an early elegy for Tchaikovsky – is doubtful: in 1892 the elder composer was in good health, and there was no premonition of the sudden illness that would kill him nearly two years later. Rather, the key to the connection with Tchaikovsky of this first trio is its repetitive opening theme, a four-note rising motif, that dominates the 15-minute work. Played backwards in the same rhythm it is exactly the opening descending motif of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto (written 1874-75), and the allusion would have been apparent to listeners and teachers at the university, as would the closing funeral march imitative of Tchaikovsky’s elegy to Nikolai Rubinstein. Rachmaninoff wrote this first trio while still a student and may well have intended it as an homage to his elder friend and mentor. The second trio, written two years later, was the true “elegiac” work mourning Tchaikovsky’s death.

Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird was written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes dance company, which premiered the work in Paris in 1910. Based on ancient Russian folk tales, it tells the story of the young Prince Ivan’s quest to find a legendary magic bird with fiery multi-coloured plumage. In the course of his adventures, he falls in love with a beautiful princess but has to fight off the evil sorcerer Katschei to eventually marry her. The suite presents the culminating scenes of the ballet in a piano transcription by the Italian pianist and pedagogue Guido Agosti (1901-1989), who studied with Ferruccio Busoni.

The Danse infernale depicts the brutal swarming and capture of Prince Ivan by Katschei’s monstrous underlings until Prince Ivan uses the magic feather given to him by the Firebird to cast a spell on his captors, making them dance until they drop from exhaustion. The Berceuse is a lullaby depicting the eerie scene of the slumbering assailants, leading to the Finale, a wedding celebration for Prince Ivan and his princess bride.Agosti’s piano transcription, completed in 1928, is a daunting technical challenge for the pianist. Most of the piano writing is laid out on on three staves in order to cover the multi-octave range of the keyboard that the pianist must patrol. The piano comes into its own in this transcription as a percussion instrument, to be played with the wild abandon with which a betrayed lover throws her ex-partner’s possessions off the balcony onto the street below.Judging from the shocking 7-octave-wide chord crash that opens the Dance infernale, Agosti captures well the bruising pace of the action, with off-beat rhythmic jabs standing out from a succession of punchy left-hand ostinati constantly nipping at the heels of the melody line. The accelerating pace as the sorcerer’s ghouls are made to dance ever more frantically is a major aerobic test for the pianist.

Relief comes in the Berceuse, which presents its own pianistic challenges, mainly those of finely sifting the overtones of vast chord structures surrounding the lonely tune singing out from the middle of the keyboard.The wedding celebration depicted in the Finale presents Stravinsky’s trademark habit of cycling hypnotically round the pitches enclosed within the interval of a perfect 5th. Just such a melody, swaddled in hushed tremolos, opens this final movement. It is a major challenge for the pianist to imitate the shimmering timbre of the orchestra’s brightest instruments as this theme is given its apotheosis to end the suite in a blaze of sonority that extends across the entire range of the keyboard.

The Suite italienne is one of several spin-offs from Pulcinella, the “ballet with song” that Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) composed for the Ballets Russes impresario Serge Diaghilev in 1920. “Composed” in this case being a somewhat misleading verb, as Diaghilev had found tunes he wanted to use by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), which he gave to Stravinsky to arrange. (Massine also based his choreography on 18th-century Neapolitan steps.) This borrowing was controversial at the time, as was the “neo-Classical” direction Stravinsky’s music suddenly took, spiking the Baroque harmonies with dissonances, goosing the regular meters, and generally creating witty, ironic musical mayhem.

The brio and charm of the music was undeniable, however, and Stravinsky capitalized on it with various arrangements, including several suites of excerpts from the ballet’s 18 numbers for violin and/or cello and piano. Neither Stravinsky nor Diaghilev were aware at the time that Pergolesi was a popular name that 18th-century publishers slapped on just about any piece by a lesser-known contemporary that needed a sales boost. Of this Suite, only the Serenata and Menuetto are based on actual Pergolesi melodies. The Introduzione, Tarantella, Scherzino, and Finale are based on music by Domenico Gallo, and the Gavotta con due variazioni came originally from Carlo Monza.

Pulcinella is a 21-section ballet by Stravinsky with arias for soprano, tenor and bass vocal soloists, and two sung trios. It is based on the 18th-century play Quatre Polichinelles semblables, or Four similar Pulcinellas, revolving around a characters from the commedia dell’arte . The work premiered at the Paris Opera on 15 May 1920 under the baton of Ernest Ansermet . The central dancer, Leonid Massine, created both the libretto and the choreography, while Picasso designed the costumes and sets. The ballet was commissioned by Diaghilev , impresario of the Ballets Russes. A complete performance takes 35–40 minutes. Stravinsky revised the score in 1965 .

Ernest Ansermet wrote to Stravinsky in 1919 about the project. The composer initially did not like the idea of music by Pergolesi, but once he studied the scores, which Diaghilev had found in libraries in Naples and London , he changed his mind. Stravinsky adapted the older music to a more modern style by borrowing specific themes and textures, but interjecting his modern rhythms, cadences, and harmonies.

Pulcinella marked the beginning of Stravinsky’s second phase as a composer, his neoclassical period. He wrote:

‘Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too.’

Suite italienne

Stravinsky based the following works on the ballet:

1925: Suite d’après des thèmes, fragments et morceaux de Giambattista Pergolesi, for violin and piano (in collaboration with Paul Kochanski).

1932/33: Suite italienne, for cello and piano (in collaboration with Gregor Piatigorsky ).

1933: Suite italienne, for violin and piano (in collaboration with Samuel Dushkin ).

Violinist Jasha Heifetz and Piatigorsky later made an arrangement for violin and cello, which they also called Suite italienne.

Guido Agosti (11 August 1901 – 2 June 1989) was an Italian pianist and renowned for his yearly summer course in Siena frequented by all the major musicians of the age.It was on the express wish of Alfredo Casella that Agosti took over his class which he did for the next thirty years.Sounds heard in his studio have never been forgotten.

Agosti was born in Forli 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldiand earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his professional career as a pianist in 1921. Although he never entirely abandoned concert-giving, nerves made it difficult for him to appear on stage,and he concentrated on teaching. He taught piano at the Venice Conservatoire and at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.In 1947 he was appointed Professor of piano at the Accademia Chigiana Siena .He also taught at Weimar and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

His notable students include Maria Tipo,Yonty Solomon Leslie Howard,Hamish Milne,Martin Jones,Ian Munro,Dag Achat,Raymond Lewenthal,Ursula Oppens,Kun- Woo Paik,Peter Bithell.He made very few recordings; there is a recording of op 110 from the Ghione theatre in Rome together with his recording on his 80th birthday concert in Siena of Debussy preludes .

La scuola musicale russa tra Ottocento e Novecento rappresenta una fase cruciale nell’evoluzione del pensiero occidentale. In questo arco di tempo, la Russia, che in precedenza era stata in gran parte isolata dalle principali correnti musicali europee, iniziò a emergere come una potenza culturale significativa.Il cambiamento iniziò con Michail Glinka, spesso considerato il padre della musica classica russa. Glinka aprì la strada ad un nuovo stile musicale che attingeva profondamente dalla ricca tradizione folcloristica e dalle melodie popolari russe. Il suo approccio non era semplicemente quello di utilizzare melodie popolari, ma piuttosto di integrarle in una struttura classica sofisticata, creando così un ponte tra l’eredità culturale russa e le forme musicali occidentali.

Seguendo le orme di Glinka, il cosiddetto “Gruppo dei Cinque”, composto da Mily Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky e Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov, portò avanti questa visione. Si trattava di artisti determinati a produrre una musica che fosse distintamente russa, non solo nella melodia, ma anche nell’armonia, nel ritmo e nella struttura. Nel corso del Novecento, compositori come Sergej Rachmaninoff e Igor Stravinskij continuarono a sviluppare questo stile. Rachmaninoff, con la sua profonda sensibilità e la sua abilità al pianoforte, portò la tradizione romantica russa fino agli inizi del XX secolo.

Stravinskij, d’altra parte, fu un innovatore, spingendo in avanti i confini stessi della musica con opere come “La Sagra della Primavera”, che provocarono sia scandalo che ammirazione per la loro audacia ritmica e armonica.

Il programma della serata si apre con una selezione di Preludi di Sergei Rachmaninov, alcune delle pagine più famose del compositore russo. I brani proposti spaziano da composizioni romantiche e appassionate a brani più drammatici e tormentati.

A seguire, il Trio élégiaque n. 1, in sol minore, di Rachmaninov, opera composta nel 1892. Il brano è un’opera intensa e drammatica, che potrebbe essere stata ispirata dalla morte di una persona cara.Nella seconda parte, il concerto propone la Suite Italienne, per violoncello e pianoforte, di Igor Stravinsky. Il brano è una sintesi del balletto “Pulcinella”, composto nel 1920 ed ispirato alla musica popolare italiana del XVII e XVIII secolo.

Da sottolineare, infine, il prestigio degli artisti coinvolti: Daniele Sabatini è un violinista romano, già vincitore di numerosi premi nel repertorio cameristico insieme al pianista Simone Rugani; Evelyne Berezovsky è una pianista russa che vive a Londra, già ospite di Roma Tre Orchestra, che partecipa grazie al generoso contributo del Keyboard Charitable Trust; Martina Biondi è una delle migliori violoncelliste italiane della nuova generazione, attualmente residente a Berlino.

Giovanni Bertolazzi e gli Amici della Musica di Padova desiderano dedicare il concerto di questa sera alla memoria di Zoltán Kocsis,

nel ricordo sempre vivo dei suoi concerti padovani

“Si dovrebbe tendere all’eterno, non a ciò che finisce.” Z. Kocsis (1952 – 2016) ‘One should think of the infinite ,not just that which finishes ‘

Joseph Haydn

(1732 – 1809)

Sonata in fa maggiore Hob. XVI:23

Allegro moderato

Adagio

Finale (Presto)

Ludwig van Beethoven

(1770 – 1827)

Sonata in mi bemolle maggiore op. 7

Allegro molto e con brio

Largo, con gran espressione

Allegro

Rondo (Poco allegretto e grazioso)

Franz Liszt

(1811 – 1886)

“Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” (Preludio da Joh. Seb. Bach) S. 179

Totentanz, Parafrasi sul “Dies irae” S. 525

Igor Stravinskij

(1882 – 1971)

da L’oiseau de feu (trascr. Guido Agosti) Danse infernale

Berceuse

Finale

It was almost four years ago that Giovanni played in the Sala dei Giganti in a sunday morning series dedicated to young competition winners .Giovanni,I had already heard in Bolzano and had immediately realised that here was potentially a remarkable musician and passionately dedicated pianist.I wrote about that first concert in Padua giving it the title ‘A Giant amongst the Giants’

Giovanni Bertolazzi – “A Giant amongst the Giants”

Giovanni has now grown into a very mature young man with a quarter of a century behind him as his playing is growing steadily in stature.He has been taken under the wing of the Keyboard Trust and has already played in London on two occasions.On the first occasion he took advantage of the generosity of Leslie Howard ,the leading Liszt expert of the day and Artistic director of the KT ,to discuss repertoire and consult scores with a true expert.Leslie had been a esteemed student of Guido Agosti who had studied with Busoni who in turn had been a student of Liszt.On the same occasion he played the Liszt Sonata to Peter Frankl at his home and they spent many hours discussing it together.Giovanni on his second visit to London last June took the National Liberal Club by storm as he gave the first in a series of six concerts for young musicians in a hall which had seen Rachmaninov and Moiseiwitch before the war.Last autumn he toured America and astounded all that heard him including the New York critic Jed Distler one of the most informed critics of our day. I like to think that Giovanni and I have become friends since that fateful day in Bolzano when I by chance bumped into him with his father and was able to congratulate him on the superb performances he had given in the ‘Busoni’.

It is this artistry that has flowered into a towering presence where he is merely the medium between the composers and his audience.I have heard most of the works in today’s programme but such was his way of recreating the music that I was bowled over by so many things that I had not noticed before.One of the most remarkable things about Giovanni’s playing is his kaleidoscopic sense of colour and with just the right amount of showmanship that allows him to reenact the music before our astonished eyes.Remarkable ,no nonsense contrasts in the Trio of the Scherzo but it had also been noticeable from the very first notes of this early sonata.A sonata where the genius of Beethoven suddenly comes to the fore as he takes the form bequeathed to him by his teacher Haydn and transforms it with his irascible genius into the sonatas that were to be the thermometer for a life span in 32 steps.

I have written about Giovanni’s performance quite recently in London but suddenly in Giovanni’s hands one becomes aware of what a great work this early sonata is.It is ,of course ,the Largo that is so poignant and already points to the things that are to come in the last great trilogy.Giovanni on a piano that at first seemed rather muffled, here in this great slow movement he discovered its secrets and he created a full string quartet sound where even the rests took on a searing significance as each gasp became more and more intense.A mastery of touch that allowed a non legato bass but with a legatissimo melodic line of such subtle tenderness.Slightly leaning on the inner notes of the chords in the octaves it gave a real string quartet feel as one could suddenly be aware of what ravishing beauty the young Beethoven was capable of .The opening of the Scherzo- Allegro was like opening a window to let fresh air in after such intensity.It was in the Trio with its rolling harmonies with injections of electric shocks that must have been truly astonishing in Beethoven’s time and it was this same surprise and stupor that this musician ,the same age as Beethoven when he penned such marvels,was able to show us today.A rondo that was all elegance and delicacy and on each appearance still more insinuatingly presented.But this was rudely interrupted by an episode of overwhelming power and rhythmic energy.The most noticeable thing was the clarity that Giovanni brought to the music with never hard or ungrateful sounds but always rich and full of a string quartet or orchestral texture.This was not just a great virtuoso but a musician of stature dedicated to recreating the music and surprising even himself as the music was allowed to unravel so naturally from his extraordinarily sensitive ten players.

I am reminded of Kantarow who is one of the blessed few that lives every note and like Giovanni makes the music speak in a musical conversation that keeps us enthralled from the first to the last.A story that has to be told ….and what a story!It was the same immediacy that he had brought to Haydn’s sonata in F that opened this well balanced programme.An Allegro moderato that was all brilliance and charm .From these very first notes the subtle legato of the right hand with the gentle non legato of the left was a transcendental tour de force of touch that I have not heard played with this Matthay type simplicity for too long .The ravishing beauty of the Adagio had me thinking that this surely is the birth of ‘bel canto’.A sense of balance that allowed the melodic line to glow and shine with golden beauty and ornaments that unwound with the ease and grace of a great singer.Haydn marks the Finale Presto but surely not so fast as to loose the sense of fun and games that the composer is treating us too.Giovanni’s kaleidoscopic palette of colour allowed him nevertheless to shape this movement with subtle shading but surely Giovanni you can let your hair down now and have more fun after the burning intensity you had shown us in the sublime Adagio?

Giovanni’s Liszt playing is well known as his CD’s can already testify.CD’s that were produced by Borgato the makers of superb instruments and infact the preferred piano of Radu Lupu whenever he played in the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

Hopefully this marriage between Borgato pianos and a star pianist will bring lustre to both in the name of art.Mr Borgato was present tonight together with Giovanni’s father and both were visibly bowled over as were we all by what we were about to be treated to after the interval.

It was Liszt that he and Kevin Chen had surprised the world with at the International Competition in Budapest.Both top prize winners Chen a genial figure who at fourteen ,a prodigious genius who went on to astonish the juries of Geneva at 16 and Rubinstein at 18.Like Lim or Trifonov it is an early presumptuous genius that may or may not mature well.Giovanni has been carefully delving into the scores and studying intensely helped by many great musicians like Jean Eflem Bavouzet and Peter Frankl in particular.It is this time that has been so important to allow the music to mature within this already superbly trained musician.Here mention should be made of the five years vigorous training that Giovanni received in Catania from Epifanio Comis .We live in an age when time to stop and think becomes ever more precious .An age of instant comunication, fast travel and where quantity seems to be more important that quality.

All this to say that I was overwhelmed by Giovanni’s performances of Liszt and Agosti ( Agosti my own teacher and great friend who I will celebrate tomorrow in Forlì where he was born and is buried .A student of Busoni who was in turn a student of Liszt.Liszt who had been taught by Czerny,a student of Beethoven who in turn had been a student of Haydn – small world !).

Liszt’s “Weinen,Klagen,Sorgen,Zagen ‘ I have never been aware of what a remarkably beautiful work it is until today.It was played with a simplicity as the opening desolate notes were whispered into our ears only to be transformed into a work of a true believer with genial resources in his hands and heart.Totentanz too ,usually a work of scintillating virtuosity here was transformed into a satisfying whole where each variation whilst given its own character was part of a much larger architectural design.Astonishing technical fireworks abound,of course ,but like with Arrau never forgetting the extraordinary musical invention of a master work.

Breathtaking virtuosity with double notes I have never heard before played with such colour and ease.Glissandi that shot across the keyboard like streaks of lightening but linked always to an overall musical line.But it was Agosti’s ‘Firebird’ where all of Giovanni’s technical brilliance and kaleidoscopic sense of colour produced an unforgettable performance that is for me undoubtedly the greatest I have ever heard.There have been some remarkable performances from two stars such as Kantarow and Rana recently but what Giovanni produced today I could only imagine coming from the hands of Agosti himself.All those that flocked to Agosti’s studio in the summer months at the Chigiana in Siena have never forgotten the sounds that came from this rather reserved musical genius.

The opening was indeed a ‘Danse Infernale’ as Giovanni suddenly let rip with amazing technical command, authority and above all a rhythmic drive that was exhilarating and exciting.The hushed tones of the Berceuse were bathed in pedal and whispered with a glowing fluidity in a magic sound world that kept us all mesmerised .It is always a magic moment when the clouds open and the ‘Firebird’ is revealed but today the ravishing beauty that Giovanni was able to create still is with me as I write these few poor lines to try to understand myself and share with others such a wondrous musical experience.The gradual build up to the final tumultuous wave of sounds was truly masterly .

I thought of the young pianist I had heard all those years ago in Bolzano and the long difficult path he has had to pursue since.A trial of fire indeed for a young man who dedicates his life to his art but what joy he finds as he comes out of the jungle to become one of the most exciting performers before the public today.

An encore was introduced very eloquently considering the tour de force that Giovanni had been through .The ‘Valse Triste’ in a transcription by Cziffra of the violinist Vecsey.A violinist almost forgotten these days but as Giovanni had told us he had played for the Amici della Musica di Padova in 1928 .What he did not tell us was that Agosti had written his transcription of the ‘Firebird’in that same year!A vintage year indeed!Also I was just told en passant that Guido Agosti was the pianist!

I have written about Giovanni’s performance before so let’s just enjoy it together now.

Here is a link to a recent performance Giovanni gave in Milan for the Serate Musicali :

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwig_sbD7YuDAxXn7LsIHdKWDjIQtwJ6BAgXEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dc0Z7x8ud_lc&usg=AOvVaw2EeXKl4xTiU1cdMu8-qEnR&opi=89978449

Franz von Vecsey was a Hungarian violinist and composer, who became a well-known virtuoso in Europe through the early 20th century. Born: March 23, 1893, Budapest ,Hungary Died: April 5, 1935, Rome his Full name: Ferenc Vecsey

GIOVANNI BERTOLAZZI

Giovanni Bertolazzi è il vincitore del 2° Premio e di 5 premi speciali al Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Franz Liszt” di Budapest (2021).

Nato a Verona nel 1998, si è avvicinato al pianoforte da bambino, crescendo in una famiglia particolarmente interessata alla cultura, all’arte ed alla musica.

Dopo aver conseguito il diploma accademico di I livello in Pianoforte con 110 e lode presso il Conservatorio “B. Marcello” di Venezia con Massimo Somenzi, decide di seguire gli insegnamenti della scuola pianistica di Epifanio Comis presso l’Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “V. Bellini” di Catania, dove ha conseguito il diploma accademico di II livello con 110, lode e menzione speciale.

Durante i suoi studi, ha frequentato diverse masterclass di pianoforte tenute da illu- stri pianisti e pedagoghi come Lily Dorfman, Joaquín Achúcarro, Matti Raekallio, Violetta Egorova, Boris Berezovsky, Stephen Kovacevich e Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. Ha vinto più di 40 premi in concorsi pianistici internazionali, tra cui il 1° Premio al Concorso Pianistico “Siegfried Weishaupt” di Ochsenhausen (2017), il 1° Premio al Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Sigismund Thalberg” di Napoli (2018) e il 4° Premio al Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Ferruccio Busoni” di Bolzano (2019). Nel giugno 2019 a Milano ha ricevuto il “Premio Alkan per il virtuosismo pianisti- co”. Da gennaio 2020, Giovanni è sostenuto artisticamente dalla Associazione Culturale “Musica con le Ali”. Nel luglio 2022 è stato premiato con il “Tabor Foundation Award”, riconoscimento assegnatogli dalla Verbier Festival Academy in occasione del Verbier Festival (Svizzera).

Si è esibito in importanti sedi tra cui Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Palazzo Pitti di Firenze, Teatro Politeama Garibaldi di Palermo, Teatro Bellini di Catania, Palazzo del Quirinale a Roma, Sala Verdi del Conservatorio di Milano, “F. Liszt” Academy of Music di Budapest, Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum a Budapest, Landesmusikakademie di Ochsenhausen, Kadrioru Kunstimuuseum di Tallinn, Steinway Hall a Londra. Inoltre è stato ospite di prestigiose organizzazioni musica- li come Serate Musicali di Milano, Amici della Musica di Padova, Bologna Festival, Amici della Musica di Firenze, Verbier Festival, Cziffra Festival di Budapest nel- l’ambito del quale è stato anche invitato a registrare un programma dedicato a Beethoven e Liszt per Bartók Rádió.

Haydn’s six Piano Sonatas Hob. XVI:21-26 were published in 1774 with a dedication to Prince Nicholas Esterházy I. The Sonata in F major Hob. XVI:23 is undoubtedly the most popular of them. The playful opening movement with its two contrasting themes, the wonderfully melancholic Adagio in f minor and the lively Presto finale make this work a prime example of the classical sonata,

Painting of Ludwig Van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler made in the year 1820

Sonata no. 4 in E flat major, opus 7: Beethoven himself named this pianoforte sonata Grande Sonate because it was published by itself in 1797 – unusual for the time. It remains his second-longest sonata, behind the Hammerklavier Sonata op 106. Beethoven’s pupil (and Liszt’s teacher) Carl Czerny wrote: “The epithet appassionata would fit much better to the Sonata in E flat op. 7, which he wrote in a very impassioned mood”. It may be that the reason behind such passionate music was the composer’s attraction for his dedicatee, the then 16-year-old pupil Anna Luise Barbara Countess von Keglevich, and it is possible be that her father had commissioned Beethoven to write the work for her.

Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing),BWV 12, is a church cantata composed by J.S.Bach in Weimar for Jubilate ,the third Sunday after Easter with the first performance on 22 April 1714 in the Schlosskirche, the court chapel in Weimar.

Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen,” S. 180 is one of Franz Liszt’s most significant works. Written after Liszt joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and during a time of deep personal tragedy, it reflects both Liszt’s religious journey and his coping with suffering and shows daring explorations of chromaticism that pushed the limits of tonality. It was arranged for organ one year after the piano version was composed and became one of his best-known compositions for organ.The work dates from 1862 and was motivated by the death of Liszt’s elder daughter, Blandine and is dedicated to Anton Rubinstein.This massive set of variations was written by Franz Liszt when two of his three children had died within three years of each other; he had resigned his position of Kapellmeister to the court of Weimar due to continued opposition to his music, and finally his long sought marriage to Princess Caroline Wittgenstein had been thwarted by political intrigue.Giovanni played the heartrending prelude S.179 which precedes the massive set of variations S.180.

Totentanz (Dance of the Dead): Paraphrase on the ‘Dies irae’, S126 for pianoforte and orchestra is notable for being based on the Gregorian hymn Dies irae as well as for its many stylistic innovations. The piece was completed and published in 1849, and later revised twice (1853-9 and early 1880s. All these versions were also prepared for two pianos). In the late 1860s, Liszt published a version for pianoforte solo, S525. Some of the titles of Liszt’s pieces, such as Totentanz, Funérailles, La lugubre gondola and Pensée des morts show the composer’s obsession with mortality, as well as his profound Christian faith, these things being apparent from Liszt as a teenager right up until his last days – more than 50 years later.

The Dance of Death (Totentanz) from Liber Chronicarum [Nuremberg Chronicle], 1493, attr. to Michael Wolgemut

In the last movement of the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz the medieval (Gregorian) Dies Irae is quoted in a shockingly modernistic manner. In 1830 Liszt attended the first performance of the symphony and was struck by its powerful originality. Liszt’s Totentanz presents a series of variations on the Dies irae – a theme that his will have known since 1830 at the latest from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. As an early biographer noted, “Every variation discloses some new character―the earnest man, the flighty youth, the scornful doubter, the prayerful monk, the daring soldier, the tender maiden, the playful child.” A second theme, beginning at variation 6 – taken from the Prose des morts in the Catholic breviary – is itself varied before the first theme returns at the end of the work.

Liszt’s hand

Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird was written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes dance company, which premiered the work in Paris in 1910. Based on ancient Russian folk tales, it tells the story of the young Prince Ivan’s quest to find a legendary magic bird with fiery multi-coloured plumage. In the course of his adventures, he falls in love with a beautiful princess but has to fight off the evil sorcerer Katschei to eventually marry her. The suite presents the culminating scenes of the ballet in a piano transcription by the Italian pianist and pedagogue Guido Agosti (1901-1989), who studied with Ferruccio Busoni.

The Danse infernale depicts the brutal swarming and capture of Prince Ivan by Katschei’s monstrous underlings until Prince Ivan uses the magic feather given to him by the Firebird to cast a spell on his captors, making them dance until they drop from exhaustion. The Berceuse is a lullaby depicting the eerie scene of the slumbering assailants, leading to the Finale, a wedding celebration for Prince Ivan and his princess bride.Agosti’s piano transcription, completed in 1928, is a daunting technical challenge for the pianist. Most of the piano writing is laid out on on three staves in order to cover the multi-octave range of the keyboard that the pianist must patrol. The piano comes into its own in this transcription as a percussion instrument, to be played with the wild abandon with which a betrayed lover throws her ex-partner’s possessions off the balcony onto the street below.Judging from the shocking 7-octave-wide chord crash that opens the Dance infernale, Agosti captures well the bruising pace of the action, with off-beat rhythmic jabs standing out from a succession of punchy left-hand ostinati constantly nipping at the heels of the melody line. The accelerating pace as the sorcerer’s ghouls are made to dance ever more frantically is a major aerobic test for the pianist.

Relief comes in the Berceuse, which presents its own pianistic challenges, mainly those of finely sifting the overtones of vast chord structures surrounding the lonely tune singing out from the middle of the keyboard.The wedding celebration depicted in the Finale presents Stravinsky’s trademark habit of cycling hypnotically round the pitches enclosed within the interval of a perfect 5th. Just such a melody, swaddled in hushed tremolos, opens this final movement. It is a major challenge for the pianist to imitate the shimmering timbre of the orchestra’s brightest instruments as this theme is given its apotheosis to end the suite in a blaze of sonority that extends across the entire range of the keyboard.

Guido Agosti (11 August 1901 – 2 June 1989) was an Italian pianist and renowned for his yearly summer course in Siena frequented by all the major musicians of the age.It was on the express wish of Alfredo Casella that Agosti took over his class which he did for the next thirty years.Sounds heard in his studio have never been forgotten.

Agosti was born in Forli 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldiand earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his professional career as a pianist in 1921. Although he never entirely abandoned concert-giving, nerves made it difficult for him to appear on stage,and he concentrated on teaching. He taught piano at the Venice Conservatoire and at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.In 1947 he was appointed Professor of piano at the Accademia Chigiana Siena .He also taught at Weimar and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

His notable students include Maria Tipo,Yonty Solomon Leslie Howard,Hamish Milne,Martin Jones,Ian Munro,Dag Achat,Raymond Lewenthal,Ursula Oppens,Kun- Woo Paik,Peter Bithell.He made very few recordings; there is a recording of op 110 from the Ghione theatre in Rome together with his recording on his 80th birthday concert in Siena of Debussy preludes .

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/01/17/giovanni-bertolazzi-in-rome-liszt-is-alive-and-well-at-teatro-di-villa-torlonia/

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/12/04/giovanni-bertolazzi-the-mastery-and-authority-of-liszt/

Giovanni Bertolazzi Liberal Club ‘En Blanc et Noir’ 5th June 2023

Giovanni Bertolazzi Liberal Club ‘En Blanc et Noir’ 5th June 2023 ‘A star is born!’

Giovanni with the piano technician looking on

An admirer,Giselle Pascal,looking at a pianist’s hands.She had heard Cziffra play Totentanz in Paris

Giovanni Bertolazzi con Caterina Isaia Museo Teatrale alla Scala di Milano

Complimenti a Caterina Isaia e Giovanni Bertolazzi che questa sera al Museo Teatrale Alla Scala di Milano, come ieri al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, hanno emozionato il pubblico in una Sala Esedra sold out!

Il Salotto Musicale, realizzato in collaborazione con il Museo Teatrale alla Scala, torna a settembre…grazie a tutti e al prossimo appuntamento con l grande musica dei migliori giovani talenti italiani!

Caterina Isaia and Giovanni Bertolazzi at the Teatro La Fenice Sala Esedra Venice La Scala La Fenice

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/06/02/the-gift-of-music-the-keyboard-trust-at-30/

Zoltán Kocsis, pianist and conductor, born 30 May 1952; died 6 November 2016

Zoltán Kocsis, died aged 64 following a long illness, was a member of a distinguished troika of Hungarian pianists – with Dezsö Ránki and András Schiff – who emanated from the late 1960s class of Pál Kadosa at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Schiff, although the youngest of the trio, was the first to embark on an international career, while Kocsis, like Ránki, remained closer to Hungary ,engaging fruitfully with his compatriots, provocatively and often courageously towards officialdom. Kocsis’s contribution to the culture of his native country was all the more valuable in that he was not only a pianist and conductor, but also a teacher, arranger, musicologist, composer, record producer and critic.

Underpinning that versatility was a sense of mission: a burning desire to pass on the insights and experience of previous generations. To that end he would proselytise on behalf of, for example, Rachmaninov’s or Bartók’s performances of their own works, even when this approach ran counter to orthodoxy. Thus his interpretations of Bartok (he recorded the complete piano works, both solo and with orchestra , to high acclaim) exemplified his conviction that. The ‘barbarism’ traditionally projected in the ubiquitous motor rhythms was too extreme, too mechanical. Kocsis preferred a more flexible and sensitive approach, as had been demonstrated, he maintained, by Bartók himself.

Rubato was indeed a prominent feature of all Kocsis’s playing, whether in his ravishing account of Grieg’s Erotik, in the subtle inflections of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, evoking the preternatural stillness of a moonlit night, or in the transcendental figuration of Liszt’s Les Jeux d’Eau à la Villa d’Este .The other predominant characteristic of his performances was the pellucid tone, consistently sensuous even in passages of heightened emotion and enhanced by the singing quality he unfailingly brought to melodic lines.

As a conductor, Kocsis achieved prominence as co-founder with Iván Fischer of the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983. Remaining as an artistic director until 1997, he helped establish the orchestra as one of the leading world ensembles, with appearances at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, BBC Proms and Salzburg and Lucerne festivals. In 1997 he became music director of the Hungarian national Philharmonic Orchestra , nailing his colours to the mast with a performance of Schoenberg’s massive Gurrelieder in his first season. Inventive programming and contemporary repertoire remained features of his orchestral and solo piano programmes: among the composers who wrote works for him was György Kurtág, another of his teachers at the Liszt academy.

Born in Budapest, son of Mária (nee Mátyás) and Ottó Kocsis, Zoltán began his piano studies at the age of five and continued them at the Béla Bartók Conservatory, where he also learned composition. Moving on to the Liszt Academy in 1968, he was still a student when he won the Hungarian Radio Beethoven Competition in 1970. The following year he toured the US, and in 1972 appeared in London and at the Salzburg and Holland festivals. Rapidly establishing a career as an international pianist, he also achieved celebrity status in Hungary, as conductor and teacher as well as pianist. His academic pursuits continued to inform his activities on all fronts: meticulous in his study of texts and sources, he brought a scholarly, inquiring mind to the art of performance. He was appointed to teach at the Liszt academy in 1976.

Dividing his time between playing and conducting, he appeared with leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw, as well as the Hungarian National Philharmonic. He also toured extensively in Europe,America and the Far East.

With his cherubic features, shock of wavy hair and penetrating, often idiosyncratic, readings, he had a charismatic stage presence, and was especially renowned for his exceptional pianistic talents, on account of a series of prizewinning recordings. In addition to the complete Bartók series, he made some acclaimed recordings of Debussy, Rachmaninov, Liszt and Dohnányi. Drawing on his talents as composer and arranger, he made his own version of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, concluding with imaginatively virtuosic figuration.

His transcription of the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde , which at the climax spills on to multiple staves, deployed virtuosity to project the heights of passion. It is possible to feel that his account of the Liebestod from the same work (this time using Liszt’s version) emphasised passion at the cost of Isolde’s transfiguration; a similar criticism may be levelled at his forceful rather than enraptured Prelude to Lohengrin. Elsewhere, however, his undoubted virtuosity was harnessed to a sensitivity and poetic imagination that made his artistry compelling.

In 1986 he married the pianist Adrienne Hauser . After their divorce, in 1997 he married the pianist Erika Tóth. She survives him, as do their son, Krisztian, also a pianist, and daughter, Viktoria, and his son, Mark, and daughter, Rita, from his first marriage.

I concerti di Zoltán Kocsis per gli Amici della Musica di Padova

28 aprile 1983

B. Bartók: C. Debussy:

R. Wagner:

For children (I fascicolo)

Arabesque n. 1 – Tarantelle Styrienne (Danse) – Pour le piano Berceuse hé roique – Images (oublié es)

Parsifal: Scena delle fanciulle-fiore e Finale (trascr. Z. Kocsis)

19 novembre 1992

L.v. Beethoven: B. Bartók:

F. Chopin:

F. Chopin:

F. Liszt:

Sonata op. 2 n. 1

Sette Bagatelle op. 6: QuattroMazurche(op.7n.2,op.17n.4,op.24n.1,op.67n.2) Polonaise-Fantaisie op. 61

Da Anné es de pè lerinage, Troisiè me Anné e, Italie:

IV: Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este – VI: Sunt lacrymae rerum Csárdás macabre

27 gennaio 1998

C. Debussy: W.A. Mozart: B. Bartók:

Douze Préludes Libro II Fantasia in do min K 475 Dieci Pezzi da Mikrokosmos Sonata 1926

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2020/10/25/giovanni-bertolazzi-a-star-shining-brightly-at-the-presidents-palace-rome/

Giovanni Bertolazzi in London