Lunedì 22 marzo 2021 ore 21.30 Teatro Palladium (diretta streaming canale YouTube Roma Tre Orchestra)
Il ritorno di Anna Rigoni
J. Brahms: Sei pezzi per pianoforte op. 118
R. Schumann: Gesänge der frühe op. 133
L. v. Beethoven: Sonata n. 24 in fa diesis minore op. 78
C. Debussy: Images, prima serie

Anna Rigoni ,a name to remember,was the young pianist who closed this series of Young Artists Piano concerts for Roma 3 University in Rome
With looks like the young Argerich and the refined musicianship of a Pires what better way to accept this enforced lockdown that has overtaken Italy at Easter.
Valerio Vicari the enlightened artistic director of Roma 3 Orchestra had told me that she was good but he had not told me how good!
From the inspired opening notes of the six pieces that Brahms breathed and whispered in his op 118 to the crystalline clarity of Beethoven’s little Sonata in F sharp op 78 played with such subtle colouring and masterly control.
But the revelation were Schumann’s Songs of Dawn played with a poetry,sense of line and passionate conviction that I have not heard since Agosti used to haunt his studio with them as he intoned together with his playing what he considered a master work.In other hands it had been neglected and considered as a rather obscure late work of a composer who had lost his way.
In Anna’s hands her supreme musicianship showed us just how right Agosti had been.
The first book of Images by Debussy was a magical way to end this recital with her crystalline sounds that made this beautiful piano glisten as it will not do for quite some time.The sounds of Movement seemed to float into the distance as we hope this cunning little virus will do in the near future ………..to be continued………….

The Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118, are some of the most cherished compositions that Johannes Brahms wrote for solo piano.They were completed in 1893 and dedicated to Clara Schumann and was the penultimate composition published during Brahms’ lifetime and also his penultimate work that he composed for piano solo. They were written Between 1892 and 1893 along with other collections of smaller piano pieces: Seven Fantasias Op. 116, Three Intermezzos Op. 117, and Four pieces op 119 .Op 118 and 119 were premiered in London by Brahms in 1894.The six pieces of op 118 are made up of four intermezzi a Ballade and a Romanze.

The Intermezzo in A minor. Allegro non assai, ma molto appassionato immediately showed us her superb musicianship as she plunged into the passionate outpouring of sumptuous sounds with such intelligence and scrupulous attention to detail.She had absorbed the inner meaning behind the notes and her wonderful fluid technique swept us along as we knew that we were in the sensitive hands of someone we could trust.A true interpreter starts with what the composer tries to indicate on the printed page but that is just the start in trying to understand the meaning behind every single detail ,without loosing sight of the greater musical line.The path of the true interpreter is never easy but to risk the tightrope is too often only for the chosen few.Murray Perahia and Krystian Zimmerman spring to mind as interpreters who can illuminate a score in a way that has us running to take a better look at a work we mortals thought we knew intimately.All this was evident from these very first sweeping notes on this sumptuous sounding piano.Can it really be a Schimmel or have the magic hands of Mauro Buccitti waved a wand and transformed it into a Bosendorfer,the preferred piano of Brahms himself?The rich bass in the Intermezzo in A major. Andante teneramente gave such depth to a whole range of emotions.The extreme delicacy of the pianissimo chords ‘piu lento’was contrasted with the passionate duet that followed only to dissolve to the touching nostalgic tenderness of the opening.Throwing herself into the Ballade in G minor. Allegro energico with great passion but full of subtle colours that allowed her to shape the architectural contours with such sumptuous sounds.The mellifluous chorale middle section was almost orchestral in its conception and the gradual reawakening was beautifully judged before the final touching disintegration.The ever more passionate agitations in the Intermezzo in F minor. Allegretto un poco agitato contrasting so well with the tender beautifully described swapping of hands like a painter conjuring colours out of thin air.The tender Romanze in F major. Andante touchingly beautiful as the melodic lines intertwined like a great string orchestra before the sun comes out in the Allegretto grazioso.Brahms seeming to loose his way as he takes us through a fantastic maze of trills and embellishments played with just the right sense of astonishment before finding the way back ever more poignant and painfully beautiful in these ultra sensitive hands.The final bleak landscape of the remarkable tone poem that is the Intermezzo in E♭ minor Andante, largo e mesto The gradual awakening of the central section to its tumultuous passionate outpouring of emotion before dying away to a whisper brought these remarkable performances to an overwhelming end.

Gesänge der Frühe (Songs of Dawn), op.133,was composed in October 1853 and is one of Schumann’s last works composed three years before his death. By the time he began work on these pieces, he was suffering from mental and emotional decline and they were written just five months before Schumann’s attempted suicide and confinement to a mental institution.Clara Schumann wrote in her private diary, “dawn-songs, very original as always but hard to understand, their tone is so very strange.”

They were very much admired by Guido Agosti who would intone in particular the fourth of the five pieces that in many ways is similar to the last of the Four ballades op 10 by Brahms.Fou Ts’ong too was enthusiastic about the work and gradually it is to be seen on concert programmes two hundred years on!

‘Im ruhigen tempo’played with an almost religious sensitivity and made one immediately aware of what a similar world of deep emotions they inhabit as in the last pieces by Brahms.A deep communing in Schumann’s case with a deeply troubled soul.There were beautiful sounds from deep within the piano in ‘Belebt nicht su rasch’ where the dotted rhythms of Schumann were incorporated into the very soul of the melodic sound world she created.’Lebhaft’ so similar to the Brahms Ballade op 118 with its rich chords so beautifully shaped by a masterly control of the sustaining pedal.To the jewel of the set: ‘Bewegt ‘ with the anguished beseeching cry over a continuous stream of sounds.I can hear Agosti playing it with the same magic sounds as Anna found today.He of course would intone sottovoce in a way that no one who had heard him would ever forget.Today in these very special hands I was reminded of the magic that had been instilled in me all those years ago when I would spend the day playing four hands with the Maestro whilst our wives went to the beach.In the evening we would be the after dinner entertainment whilst Lydia,his wife did her crochet! The final ‘Im Anfange ruhiges,Im verlauf bewegtes tempo’a magic web of sounds played with searing intensity to the final whispered appoggiatura of uncertainty.Another remarkable performance from this extraordinary pianist who demonstrates a maturity way above her youthful appearance.

The Piano Sonata No. 24 in F sharp op.78, nicknamed “ a Thérèse” (because it was written for Countess Thérèse von Brunswick )was written in 1809 and Czerny tells us it was one of Beethoven’s favourites.The beautiful Adagio cantabile led to an equally mellifluous Allegro ma non troppo where all Beethoven’s meticulous indications were incorporated into a movement that just sang from the first to the last note.It contrasted with the great character that Anna gave to the Allegro vivace where her delicate fleeting fingers seemed to flow so naturally to the final flourish and rhythmic full stop.

Images is a suite of six compositions for solo piano by Claude Debussy.They were published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces.The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907.Have there ever been more beautiful ‘Reflets dans l’eau’ than in Anna’s hands?The shimmering water covering the entire keyboard as it built to an urgency where the melodic line was allowed to shine on the surface before becoming merely a shadow on the water.The aristocratic melodic line that she etched out in Hommage a Rameau ‘expressif et dolcemente soutenu’ was every bit as moving as Debussy’s other sarabande in his suite ‘Pour le piano’.Magical gradations of sound at the end where Debussy exhorts such care and attention ‘un peu plus lent’.pp. più p. Retenu.plus retenu and finally pppp.All so magically interpreted by this poetess of the piano very similar in so many ways to Maria João Pires .There was a lightness and sense of rhythmic drive from the whispered opening and close of Movement with an extraordinary central outburst of quite transcendental difficulty all thrown of with ease in the name of music!

It was Serkin exclaiming to Richard Goode on listening to the young Murray Perahia:’You said he was good ,but you did not tell me how good!’ I think we could say the same about Anna Rigoni today.

Anna è una pianista italiana, esibitasi come solista e in formazioni di musica da camera in Italia, Olanda, Lituania, Austria. Ammessa alla Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, attualmente studia con Lilija Zilberstein e Massimiliano Ferrati. Inizia il percorso di studi giovanissima al Conservatorio A. Pedrollo di Vicenza,  nella classe di Antonio Tessoni. Qui prosegue gli studi con Roberto Plano e Davide Franceschetti, conseguendo infine il diploma sotto la guida di Riccardo Zadra con dieci e lode e menzione d’onore. Prosegue poi gli studi al Conservatorio “G. Donizetti” di Bergamo sotto la guida di Maria Grazia Bellocchio, dove ottiene il Diploma Accademico di II livello con votazione 110/110. Grazie al progetto Erasmus, studia anche al Conservatorium Van Amsterdam nella classe di Naum Grubert. Ottiene vari primi premi a concorsi pianistici nazionali e internazionali fra cui quello assoluto al IV Concorso Pianistico Internazionale “Andrea Baldi” di Rastignano (Bologna), quelli al 18° e al 21° Concorso “Riviera della Versilia, al 7° e al 9° Concorso Nazionale “Città di Piove di Sacco”, alla XX edizione del concorso “Città di Giussano”, al 3° Concorso Pianistico Nazionale “Villa Oliva” di Cassano Magnago (VA), al “Concorso internazionale giovani musicisti Antonio Salieri di Verona e al 28° concorso Pianistico “Città di Albenga”. Vince anche  una borsa di studio nell’ambito del 32° e del 33° Festival Internazionale di Musica di Portogruaro. Selezionata fra i migliori allievi del Conservatorio di Vicenza ha partecipato alle Masterclass di Wolfram Schmitt Leonardy, John O’Conor, Benedetto Lupo e Boris Berman, Roberto Prosseda. Ha seguito con Stefania Redaelli i “Corsi Annuali di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale” all’Accademia Musicale di Sacile e l’Accademia Musicale Varesina con Roberto Plano, diplomandosi con il massimo dei voti

Roberto Pujia, Presidente Roma Tre Orchestra
Valerio Vicari, Direttore Artistico Roma Tre Orchestra