Equal first prize to Philip Zuckermann violin: Bruch violin concerto and Sarah Giannetti: Rachmaninoff 3rd;

second prize Irina Vaterl: Mozart K466.

Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto diretto da Maffeo Scarpis

For Agimus Padua ……..

The Competition now in its 15th year with the founding of Agimus Padua by Elia Modenese and Elisabetta Gesuato in its 25th!

The Keyboard Trust has long had a partnership with them and enjoyed their hospitality in Padua and Venice .

Just last sunday Mark Viner gave a recital at the Palazzo Zacco Armeni full to the brim with attentive listeners.CD’s sold out immediately.

AGIMUS is a musical organisation started in Rome in 1949.

Although it’s main office is in Rome it stretches from Ragusa in Sicily to Venice with many local branches scattered all over Italy.

Bringing music to the people and helping young artists to gain experience and also help in the understanding of Italian music.

Not necessarily all Italian artists as glancing at the Padua branch list over the past 25 years shows.

We notice artists from 32 different countries with 200 contestants in the International Prize for soloists and orchestra named after this one of the most beautiful of Italian cities “Citta’di Padova”.

Past winners include Kiril Rodin,who went on to win the Tchaikowsky Competition in Moscow ,as Martin Helmchen who went on to win the Clara Haskil and is fast becoming a favourite in London for his great musicianship.

It was nice after all these years for the Keyboard Trust to take a role alongside many distinguished jury members.

Amongst whom the brave conductor Maffeo Scarpis who helped these sometimes inexperienced players to play their best with very little rehearsal time.

It was a great joy to meet the President of Agimus Salvatore Silivestro,now living in Perugia and exchanging so many stories of the people we both had known in our 50 years of music in Italy.

So many wonderful people to remember from Carlo Zecchi and Franco Ferrara to Franco Mannino and Francesco Siciliani.The Agosti’s and De Rosa’s and my much missed duo partner Lya De Barberiis.

All key figures in forming music in Italy in the past half century.

Nice to know too that Andrew Starling is back in Perugia where he was for years the right hand man of Mrs Alba Buitoni (yes of pasta origins).

A Foundation in her name Buitoni/Borlotti has been created to help young musicians and is directed by Mitsuko Uchida.

Alba Buitoni a truly remarkable lady regularly inviting Rubinstein,Serkin,Karajan to play in Perugia and enjoy being at home with her .

As they were with Count Chigi in Siena and also in L’Aquila.

All major music centres created by wealthy music lovers and shared with their home towns.

Rubinstein was an honorary citizen in L’ Aquila . That noble city horribly damaged by an earthquake and still reduced to a “ghost” town thanks to the slowness of the Italian bureaucracy

Of course there was great joy in the hall tonight to discover that an Italian had been chosen for the final.

Sarah Giannetti gave a heroic performance of Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto.

Playing it for the first time with orchestra on only one rehearsal.

Still only 22, mother of darling little Arianna,after her early studies with that very fine pianist Alberto Nose’ she has just started her climb to the top with Magarius at the famous school in Imola.

Cheered to the rafters she shared first prize with a very fine swedish violinist Philip Zuckermann.

Very good name for a violinist and it was apparent from the first notes of the Bruch Concerto that here was an important artist who played with real ” peso”.

We heard afterwards that he had studied at Julliard with Itzhak Perlman for eight years!

Irina Vaterl from Austria got the short straw and opened the final with Mozart D minor K.466 .

A born musician with a very fluid touch having studied in Graz she is now involved in chamber music in Berne where she lives .

A slight memory slip at the beginning did not ruin what was a finely shaped performance although somewhat lacking in that forward propulsion that is so necessary when playing with an orchestra.

She had I am told played her solo round magnificently which did not surprise me at all. She was rightly awarded second prize and everyone was justly rewarded for an afternoon of real music making.

Pictured afterwards with her Italian violinist companion as Sarah was with her colleague and fellow student from Imola Nicola Losito,who will play for Agimus Padua on the 25th March and for the Keyboard Trust in London in June.

It is always refreshing to see all these wonderfully talented young musicians enjoying each others company and music making without the slightest rivalry.

A lesson that Barenboim is rightly using as a secret weapon with his wonderful West Divan Orchestra .

“If music be the food of love ,play on “………..indeed….. The Bard never got it wrong