Filippo Tenisci exults the genius of Wagner and Liszt in Velletri

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2023/10/16/filippo-tenisci-opening-concert-at-roma-3-a-musician-of-refined-intelligence-and-mastery/
A recital by Filippo Tenisci for Prof Ricci’s twentieth anniversary season of concerts at the Tuscia University. Not only for the public present in their beautiful auditorium but also streamed live to an audience worldwide.
A collaboration with the Keyboard Trust based in London that aims to help exceptionally talented graduate pianists find a public at the start of their professional career. At a certain stage in a musician’s early career it is only through playing in public that one learns from listening critically to oneself .
Filippo is fast making a name for himself with his dedication to Wagner and Liszt’s transcriptions or paraphrases. Wagner was married to Liszt’s daughter ,Cosima ,and Liszt spent a good part of his life in Weimar conducting the works of his son in law and composing music that looked to the future.

It is exactly this aspect that Filippo wanted to explain to the public today opening with a work especially written for him by Paolo Catenaccio. ‘Crepuscolo’ is the very Wagnerian title of the 10 Miniature Nocturnes written in 2023. Ten ‘bagatelles’ of luminosity,dissonance and resolution that created an atmosphere for the opening of the concert that also included a rarely played Haydn Sonata in two movements.

A sonata that Filippo played with a classical simplicity and clarity where his crystalline fingers could bring vividly to life the ‘joie de vivre’ and genial invention of the father of the Sonata.
Haydn was also Beethoven’s teacher and it was the last work that Beethoven wrote for the piano that closed the first half of Filippo’s recital.These too were bagatelles – six miniature tone poems that like Chopin and the Mazurka contain the very essence of the composers soul.
Filippo played them with sterling musicianship and respect but his fantasy and passionate abandon he kept for after the interval with Wagner/ Liszt that ignited the concert with an electric shock of energy and passion.

Beethoven’s ‘cantabile e compiacevole’ indication in the first Bagatelle give a clue to the peace and serenity that the composer at last could experience after the tormented life of an artist. It is in the six miniatures as in the variations of the last two sonatas op 109 and 111 that Beethoven could perceive in his private world of silence with a composer completely deaf to the external sounds that had bewitched him for a good part of his life.
The ravishing beauty and simplicity of the first Bagatelle was mirrored in the third still with particular indications of calm and peace – ‘cantabile e grazioso’. The ‘quasi allegretto’ of pastoral calm of the fifth and finally a visionary ‘Andante amable e con moto’ of the sixth .A peace and calm that was only disturbed by the rumbustious outcry of the second,”Allegro’ and the fourth ,’Presto’ but always resolved with gentle peaceful endings.
It is only the opening and ending frame of the sixth that Beethoven allows his irascible impatience to come to the fore for the last time.
Filippo played this great final monument with classical respect and impeccable musicianship but just missed the visionary sounds of the genius of Bonn who by some miracle could write down the sounds for posterity that only he could hear in his head.

It was after the short interval that Filippo was reborn playing now with passionate abandon and total conviction as he assaulted the piano with the revolutionary opening of Wagner’s ‘Liebestod.’
Golden strands of knotty counterpoint were played with ravishing beauty and a clarity of orchestral proportions where he no longer had just ten fingers but a whole orchestra in his hands.Building to a climax of breathtaking power and passion this music had unleashed in Filippo a key to the Wagnerian world of genial fantasy and mastery.

The ‘Tannhäuser’ Overture has long been a showpiece for virtuoso pianist ,but it held no terror for Filippo who had now entered a world where technical difficulties just did not exist in his determination to transmit the ravishing beauty and sumptuous excesses of Wagners masterworks.
An ovation could be heard on the superb streaming ,that I was thankfully able to follow from afar, after a performance of breathtaking majesty and aristocratic mastery.
Chopin’s study op 10 n.11 was an encore where arpeggios were played like celestial harps with a sense of style and beauty but with a sound world that Filippo had shared with us in this second part of the recital with refined generosity.

Caro Chris mi fa molto piacere farti sapere che ieri il concerto di Filippo ha riportato un successo veramente strepitoso! grazie ancora per la segnalazione e un abbraccio.

Filippo Tenisci

Classe 1998, Filippo Tenisci ha recentemente curato l’incisione integrale delle trascrizioni Wagner/Liszt per la nota etichetta Da Vinci Publishing. 

Ha inoltre registrato la 2° Sinfonia di Beethoven nella trascendentale trascrizione di Franz Liszt per RAI 5 in occasione del Format Televisivo “UT Musica –Il Mascagni a Livorno”. 

Pianista attivo in Italia e in tutta Europa, nel 2024 ha esordito in veste di solista negli Stati Uniti d’America su invito della Art of the Piano Festival a San Francisco. Ha recentemente debuttato al Museo Teatrale della Scala a Milano nel 2024 e al Teatro Verdi di Pisa. 

Inoltre, in occasione della Festa della Repubblica Italiana 2023, su invito del Console Generale, si è esibito alla City Hall di Hong Kong, riscuotendo successo e approvazione da parte di tutto il pubblico. 

Vincitore di prestigiosi concorsi come il “Premio Crescendo” di Firenze, il “Dinu Lipatti” e il Premio “Franz Liszt” di Roma nel 2018, “Riga” Competition in Lettonia nel 2019 etc. 

Nel 2021 ha suonato con l’orchestra di Roma Tre eseguendo il Concerto n.15 K.450 di W.A. Mozart, sotto la direzione del M° Sieva Borzak. Sempre con Roma Tre Orchestra, nell’ambito del Baglini Project, ha interpretato con i pianisti Giuseppe Rossi e Maurizio Baglini ill concerto per 3 pianoforti e orchestra di W.A. Mozart. 

Si è diplomato nel 2022 presso il Conservatorio “Pietro Mascagni” di Livorno ed è in seguito stato eletto come Miglior Laureato Accademico 2021/22. 

Maggiori informazioni sul CV si possono trovare sul sito www.teniscifilippo.it 

Programma

Franz Liszt (Raiding 1811-Bayreuth, 1886)

Da “Années de Pèlerinage”

Deuxième Année Italie, S. 161

Sposalizio

Après une lecture du Dante 

*

Richard Wagner (Lipsia, 1813-Venezia, 1883)-

–Franz Liszt (Raiding 1811-Bayreuth, 1886)

Isolden’s Liebestod S. 447

Ouverture Zu Tannhäuser S. 442