The opening of Roma Tre Orchestra’s ‘Young Artists Piano Solo Series’ could not have started better than with Francesco Grano presenting three of the greatest works for piano by Chopin, Bach-Busoni and Beethoven. Prefaced by Bach’s mellifluous Prelude and Fugue in F minor from Book 1 and ending with the scintillating Scherzo from Tchaikowsky’s Pathétique Symphony in the hair raising transcription of Samuel Feinberg.
Spoken introductions that were as illuminating as his piano playing, from a pianist who above all is a thinking musician with considerable mastery in his hands but above all a poetic imagination of penetrating originality.
Delving deep into the scores he was able to find many things that illuminated the works he played with an almost improvised freshness just as he had in a few words delved deeply into the world that surrounded the composers at the moment of creation.
It is so rare these days of complete performances to hear just one Prelude and Fugue from Bach’s magnificent ’48’. Casals would always start the day with Bach to cleanse the soul and be reminded of the universal genius who is our master.
Francesco chose the one in F minor from Book 1 which immediately showed his credentials as a musician who thinks more of the music than himself. He sat at the piano as I imagine Casals or Schiff would have done as they cleared the air and their mind with the purity and simplicity of Bach’s knotty twine with a flowing whispered journey of simplicity and beauty. Not afraid to use the pedals, but it was his fingers that joined these jewels together into one glowing chain on this first journey of the day, that could clear the air and the brain ready for the fugue of quite extraordinary emotional impact, with selfless playing just allowing the music to unfold and speak for itself.
Chopin always had a copy of the ‘48′ on his piano and one can hear the influence it had in these later works which are of a master craftsman of genial originality.
The Fourth Ballade is one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire and was revealed by Francesco with the same simplicity and intelligence that he had brought to Bach. A continual flow from the first to the last note where Chopin’s variations are transformed by the innovative genius of a composer too often underrated as a master craftsman. Francesco penetrated the very depths of this late masterpiece and showed us the architectural shape and emotional strength with a simplicity and poetic complicity that penetrated the very soul within the notes. With a technical mastery that never brought attention to itself but was at the service of the music with playing of poignant sentiment but never the sickly sentimentality that Chopin has endured from the so called ‘ tradition’ . Francesco looked deeply into the score and with fearless abandon recreated this work as rarely heard. So many wonderful colours within Chopin’s own knotty twine, where a note here and there would shine like a jewel and illuminate the relentless journey that we were being treated to. A final variation unwound with golden strands of poetic beauty as it led to the passionate climax of searing emotions and technical complexity. A climax defused by chords thrown off with fearless abandon where five calming sounds were like balm to the soul as the treacherous coda was allowed to unfold with a master musician at the helm who could turn Chopin’s brilliance and exhilaration into the same shape that had inspired such marvels. This for me was the highlight of Francesco’s recital, but there was still more to come with Bach’s greatest work for solo violin recreated on the piano by Busoni . And the first of Beethoven’s final thoughts on a newly created piano by Broadwood that the English firm had given to the Genius of Bonn.
Francesco in his illuminated and all too brief introduction had explained that the Chaconne for solo violin was written in 1720 the year Bach’s wife had died . It was with this in mind that Francesco had envisaged this genial effusion as a Funeral Elegie with a cathedral of sounds which miraculously he had created on a solo violin that was to be the crowning glory of his Second Partita BWV 1004. Brahms had written a transcription for the left hand alone on the piano which in someway allowed the triumph of struggle to emerge as it had on the solo violin. Busoni, on the other hand, whilst keeping faithfully to Bach’s genial construction had recreated it for piano solo with two hands and most importantly two feet! It is in many ways as much Busoni as Bach and infact Busoni’s wife was often introduced as Mrs Bach-Busoni such was this match made in heaven!
A cathedral of sounds exactly mirrors Francesco’s words and it was the opening nobility and unusually strident sounds that were of poignant significance. This was a highly original reading , as we have all been influenced by the wonder of Michelangeli’s historic recording. It was the recording that had inspired me to learn it as a teenager, even though my teacher thought it was too advanced for me, but with which I won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy in London! Francesco had looked very closely in to the score with penetrating musical and poetic intelligence and found some very interesting inner harmony notes that just illuminated the percorse implied by Bach’s genial invention. Here was a remarkable technical mastery at the service of the music with a penetrating musical personality of overwhelming authority. Sometimes throwing off notes, which were just sounds of harmonic filling, like a painter adding a stroke to the canvas. A quite extraordinary palette of sounds and an illuminating sense of balance allowed him to continue on his journey of discovery with a fearless flow of sounds of architectural significance. This is an artist with something very important to say. I thought the great significance and freedom he brought to the theme before the tumultuous final declamation, though, was a little too passionate with an intensity that slowed the music down too much. But he compensated with the wash of pedal that he brought to the final build up and the explosion of swirling sounds that announced the final triumphant revelation of a work coming full circle, having embraced the whole of life in just fifteen minutes of music on four violin strings ! A universal genius indeed, and one that Francesco was able to reveall to us in all its glory thanks to Busoni.
The final work of the main body of this programme was Beethoven’s Sonata op 101 which is a work that could almost share the title with op 28 of ‘Pastoral’. An opening movement that seems to have been vibrating in the distance and just comes into view with the wonderful improvised opening phrases. Francesco brought fantasy and freedom to this opening movement but always maintaining an overall music line of simplicity and clarity. A dynamic drive to the ‘Vivace’ second movement that was perhaps the inspiration for Schumann for the second movement of his Fantasy op 17, that was dedicated indirectly to the construction of the monument to Beethoven in his home city of Bonn. It was played with a dynamic rhythmic drive and Beethoven’s pedal effects ( inspired by his mentor Haydn) were intelligently interpreted to great effect. There was magic in the air as the ‘Adagio’ was allowed to unfold with whispered beauty dissolving into swirling sounds before the Allegro took wing with startling potency. Played with great character and at times capricious questioning improvisation, where Francesco found some interesting inner counterpoints that just illuminated this masterly construction. A fugato that takes us by surprise was played with a beguiling rhythmic energy and Francesco especially underlined Broadwood’s added bass note ( which he had so learnedly described in his introduction ) before the exhilaration and teasing excitement at the end of the first of Beethovens final thoughts in 32 steps of the Piano Sonata.
I think the Feinberg transcription was really envisaged as an encore, and the programme had really finished with Beethoven. These are transcriptions by Samuel Feinberg which were a favourite fare of Russian virtuosi . Vladimir Leyetchkis was the first to introduce them to me in my Euromusica series at Teatro Ghione and they are transcription of treacherous virtuosity that need a pianist who is really a fearless juggler of notes . Francesco played with great vehemence and heroic virtuosity but it was the second encore of Bach/Kempff ‘Sicilienne’ that revealed the true artistry we had admired so much today. Integrity, humility and mastery are far rarer than piano jugglers. Francesco played much slower than Kempff and using an abundance of pedal, but it penetrated the soul and was shaped with the poetic mastery of a real artist. Idil Biret, a protégée of Kempff, had played it for us in Rome and it had remained in the soul of my wife Ileana Ghione. She remembered it and used it as the final music in the last play that she was to direct and star in ‘ Whose afraid of Virginia Woolf ‘. The final pages where the bickering husband and wife break down and clutch each other as they admit that their child had died but they had never been able to admit it , and are only now able share their grief. Francesco re-lived that magic for me today and brought a very memorable opening concert to an emotionally poignant end.
https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/12/05/ileana-and-joan-3rd-december-2023/
