Josef Mossali lo scorso anno nell’Aula Magna della Scuola di Lettere, Filosofia e Lingue dell’Università Roma Tre, in uno scatto di Diana Montini

Josef Mossali for the Young Artists Piano Solo series gave an astonishing recital beginning with the Schumann Fantasy the first note surprisingly played with the right hand deep in the bass .The recital finishing with a dance from Pletnev’s ingenious reworking of Tchaikowsky’s Nutcracker.Including two preludes by Rachmaninov played with the insinuating rubato of op 23 n 6 and the mellifluous fluidity of op 23 n.8.But it was the Debussy late studies that suddenly liberated the true interpreter in Josef as he brought the quixotic changes in the arpeggio study vividly to life identifying totally with the quick fire changes of mood interspersed with ravishing washes of sound .The octave study was a tour de force not only because of his extraordinary technical control but because of the character he gave to this remarkable work.
It was the same technical ease and sense of character that he gave to Masques before the passionate outpourings of L’isle joyeuse.
Played with passionate conviction and technical prowess for a piece inspired in Eastbourne by the island of Jersey!
Josef had given a remarkably mature account of the first movement of the Fantasy .Giving it a true architectural shape with its dramatic contrasts of passionate outbursts and serene longing.In the other two movements he was a little too involved and lost the simplicity that had been such a hallmark of the opening.
The March was played with enviable control and drive but he gave too much of himself too soon so the final explosion did not come as an inevitable conclusion but rather just another repeat.Some ravishing sounds in the last movement that is a great outpouring of song for his beloved Clara .But his youthful passion did not allow him to sit back and wallow in the sublime beauty of the melodic line and he lost his head or in this case sense of balance as the accompaniment became too involved in this intimate discourse.
Starting with Schumann and ending with a Couperin encore we could appreciate the remarkable qualities of this young artist still being guided by Massimiliano Motterle in Bergamo and Boris Petrushansky in Imola

The Fantasie in C, op.17, was written in 1836. It was revised prior to publication in 1839, when it was dedicated to Franz Liszt .It is generally described as one of Schumann’s greatest works for solo piano and is one of the central works of the early Romantic period.The piece has its origin in early 1836, when Schumann composed a piece entitled Ruines expressing his distress at being parted from his beloved Clara Wieck (later to become his wife). This later became the first movement of the Fantasy.Later that year, he wrote two more movements to create a work intended as a contribution to the appeal by Liszt for funds to erect a monument to Beethoven in his birthplace, Bonn.Schumann offered the work to the publisher Kirstner, suggesting that 100 presentation copies could be sold to raise money for the monument. Other contributions to the Beethoven monument fund included Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses.It was dedicated to Franz Liszt who replied in a letter dated June 5, 1839: “The Fantaisie dedicated to me is a work of the highest kind – and I am really proud of the honour you have done me in dedicating to me so grand a composition. I mean, therefore, to work at it and penetrate it through and through, so as to make the utmost possible effect with it.”Liszt returned the honour by dedicating his own Sonata in B minor to Schumann in 1853. Clara Schumann did not start to perform the Fantasie in her concerts until 1866, ten years after the composer died.The original title of Schumann’s work was “Obolen auf Beethovens Monument: Ruinen, Trophaen, Palmen, Grosse Sonate f.d. Piano f. Für Beethovens Denkmal”. Kirstner refused, and Schumann tried offering the piece to Haslinger in January 1837. When Haslinger also refused, he offered it to Btreitkopf & Hartel in May 1837. The movements’ subtitles (Ruins, Trophies, Palms) became Ruins, Triumphal Arch, and Constellation, and were then removed altogether before Breitkopf & Härtel eventually issued the Fantasie in May.

Schumann prefaced the work with a quote from Friedrich Schlegel:Durch alle Töne tönetIm bunten ErdentraumEin leiser Ton gezogenFür den, der heimlich lauschet.(“Resounding through all the notesIn the earth’s colorful dreamThere sounds a faint long-drawn noteFor the one who listens in secret.”)The musical quotation of a phrase from Beethoven’s song cycle An die ferne Geliebte in the coda of the first movement was not acknowledged by Schumann, and apparently was not spotted until 1910.The text of the passage quoted is: Accept then these songs beloved, which I sang for you alone]. Schumann wrote to Clara: The first movement may well be the most passionate I have ever composed – a deep lament for you. They still had many tribulations to suffer before they finally married four years later.

Achille) Claude Debussy22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Masques, L. 105, was composed in July 1904,and premiered on 18 February 1905 by Ricardo Vines at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Its sombre character reflects Debussy’s difficult separation from Lilly Texier, his first wife. The title refers to the commedia dell’arte although Debussy confided to Marguerite Long that the piece was “not Italian comedy, but an expression of the tragedy of existence” – (“ce n’est pas la comédie italienne, mais l’expression tragique de l’existence.”)In the early summer of 1903 Debussy considered writing a series of three piano pieces; the first was to be entitled L’isle joyeuse , the second to be Masques and the third was to be a piece based on a sarabande rhythm ; , due to the slow rhythm in ternary time, this last piece could have been what would later become D’un cashier d’esquisses which was also published separately in 1904. The pianist Ricardo Vines wrote in his diary that the composer had made him listen in June 1903 to what was supposed to be the first version of the piece entitled L’isle joyeuse .

It seems that the piece was inspired by Debussy from a 1717 painting by Antoine Watteau .The happy island was also very probably that of Jersey , where the musician spent important moments with his new partner Emma Bardac in the summer of 1904; it was during this period that Debussy revised and prepared for printing L’isle joyeuse . The work was published on the following 10 October by the publisher Durand, to whom the musician had sold it, together with Masques, for the sum of one thousand francs

Études L.136 are a set of 12 piano études composed in 1915. Debussy described them as “a warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless they have remarkable hands”.They are broadly considered to be his late masterpieces.

Nato nel 2001, inizia lo studio del pianoforte con il M° Massimiliano Motterle e si forma con il M° Marco Giovanetti al Conservatorio “G. Donizetti” di Bergamo, dove, dopo aver terminato il Triennio Accademico, sta attualmente frequentando il Biennio Ordinamentale sotto la guida del M° M. Motterle. Inoltre prosegue gli studi all’Accademia di Imola con il M° Boris Petrushansky. Ha vinto il Primo premio in diversi concorsi tra cui il 27° concorso “J.S. Bach” di Sestri Levante; il “XX International Music Competition” di Cortemilia; il XII concorso “Città di Riccione”; il 19°concorso “Città di Giussano”; il concorso “D. Scarlatti” di Carpenedolo; il 10° concorso “Città di Piove di Sacco”; il 17° Concorso “Marco Bramanti” di Forte dei Marmi; il 1° concorso “Lombardia è musica” tra i conservatori lombardi, istituito dal Consiglio Regionale della Lombardia; la XVa edizione del Premio Nazionale delle Arti. Ha suonato per la Società dei concerti di Milano nella Sala Verdi del Conservatorio di Milano, per la Società del Quartetto di Milano, per gli Amici della musica di Firenze, per l’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia presso l’Auditorium Parco della Musica, per la Camerata Ducale di Vercelli, per l’associazione GIA a Brescia, per il Teatro Coccia di Novara, per Rai Radio 3 e per Rai 1, per il Festival Pianistico Internazionale di Brescia e Bergamo, debuttando al Teatro Donizetti nel 2022. Ha suonato sotto la direzione del M° Pier Carlo Orizio, del M° Fabrizio Maria Carminati, collaborando con diverse orchestre tra le quali la Filarmonica del Festival Pianistico Internazionale di Brescia e Bergamo, l’Orchestra dei Virtuosi Italiani e l’Orchestra del Conservatorio G. Donizetti di Bergamo.