After Volodos what better than to hear young musicians guided by Benedetto Lupo as they delve deeply into the scores and make their first discoveries on what will be a lifetime search for that unreachable perfection that is the aspiration of all true interpreters. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2026/05/07/arcadi-volodos-in-the-eternal-city-reveals-with-mastery-the-soul-searching-of-a-unique-giant-of-our-times/
With a technical mastery they have been guided to approach the scores of others with intelligence, scholarship and humility. Talent of course is something that cannot be taught you are either born with it and it can be nurtured and helped to grow. https://youtu.be/gex0sOR7XZ0?si=th7ecNiPOyOzp0GX
It is a delicate thing that can also be killed if not watered with attention and sensibility like any growing plant. Chopin had likened the freedom or flexibility of playing like a tree with the roots firmly planted in the ground with the branches above allowed to sway in the breeze. In fact nature and music go hand in hand and to watch the beautiful natural movements of Volodos is to see a painter before his canvas with generous natural strokes applying colours to his canvas.
Horizontal strokes, rarely vertical that are only for special effects required by the composer often from the Russian school !
This is just a preamble to present the five pianists I heard today where each one had his own personality and as Rubinstein says have taken what their taste dictates, with the right guidance , and like bees have created their own honey each different from any other.
Five pianists that had one fundamental thing in common: a deep respect for the indications of the composer they are serving as interpreters not merely piano players
‘ Je sens, je joue je trasmet’ is the cry of a true interpreter and was the title of an interview with Shura Cherkassky many years ago in ‘ Le Monde de la Musique’.
Tommaso Boggian playing the G major Toccata by Bach, one of seven early works of improvised style where the performer has to make choices of ornamentation and colour bearing in mind the limited capacity of the instruments of the day but that Bach always had in mind the song and the dance.
So style, scholarship and imagination join technical mastery. It was just this that illuminated Tommaso’s playing and transformed a showpiece into a tone poem of nobility and grandeur.
Albeniz’s rarely heard fourth book of Iberia was full of sumptuous colour and ravishing sounds of naked emotions in a land of sunbaked passions. Both based on the song and the dance but one created in the formal atmosphere of the Majesty and respect of a true believer and the other born on the wings of more earthbound sentiments .
Danielle De Paola played Beethoven’s early op 10 n.3 sonata with scrupulous attention to the composers indications. The astonishing ‘Largo e mesto’ played with aristocratic authority but also imbued with beauty and colour. A flowing natural glow to the ‘Menuetto’ was followed by the subtle technical command of the elusive ‘ Rondò ‘ where the final chromatic meanderings were played with mastery as they disappeared in the depths with whispered insistence.
It was in Rachmaninov’s transcription of Bach that sumptuous sounds and burning authority suddenly ignited a door to the talent that Daniele has concealed with respect for Beethoven whose sonatas are more orchestral than pianistic. Rachmaninov is more pianistic even when respectful to the genius of Bach.
Pier Carmine Garzillo had intelligently chosen a Little sonata dedicated to Liszt to preface the monumental pinnacle of the romantic piano repertoire of Liszt’s own B minor . Garzillo played the sonata by Artance with glowing fluidity but it was his intelligent musicianship that showed us the masterpiece that the Liszt Sonata truly is. Following Liszt’s very precise indications, the opening was merely the presentation of the three motives on which the Sonata is contructed. With a control of sound saving the final explosion and true beginning of the Sonata for the fortissimo on the second page.
A performance of intelligence but also of passion and technical mastery with a palette of sounds that created an architectural whole of mature musicianship rather than flashy showmanship. I am glad to see he will be taking his final diploma in June when I can listen again to this performance that I am sure will have grown even more in stature from the hands of this real thinking musician.
Federico Manca offered an eclectic programme of Berg’s masterly op 1 Sonata , together with Prokofiev’s elusive fourth sonata. The Berg I have rarely heard played with such clarity where the line was always so clearly defined with Berg’s knotty but knowing twine ( like Medtner) where you often can not see the wood for the trees. Crystalline playing of both Berg and Prokofiev where his palette of colour illuminated his masterly musicianship as he lead us on a voyage of discovery of remarkable lucidity and intelligence.
Federico Pische I have heard before he completed his studies at the Academy with Benedetto Lupo. The transformation is remarkable and as I told him afterwards a door has been opened and revealed a world of fantasy and colour that was hidden behind a shield of technical precision.
Hats off the Benedetto who can find the key for his students that can fit each one and reveal what is behind the notes with their own authority and mastery. Federico played the Mussorgsky as written on the page adding a sense of colour and imagination to each of Hartman’s pictures that keep us on the edge of our seats. A scintillating emotional journey as we are taken around to see the pictures of a friend who was to die so suddenly and unexpectedly. Above all here was a chameleonic sense of balance where lesser hands play with a black and white technical proficiency. Here is an artist who has become a supreme colourist recreating a work that held me riveted rather than revolted as he uncovered a masterpiece that was written expressly for the piano and was not contemplated as an orchestral piece. That was to come much later let’s put the horse before the cart and allow Bydlo to go on his miraculous way.
Garzillo, Manca and Pische will be joined by Jaeden Izik Dzurko , Gold medal winner of Leeds and Montreal for their final graduation performances at the Sala Petrassi on Wednesday 17 June at 10 and at 14 h https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2025/12/16/jaeden-izik-dzurko-at-the-wigmore-hall-with-mastery-and-poetic-fantasy/
Free entry and finer more committed performances than you will ever hear in many concert halls.
ChristopherAxworthy-MusicCommentary 