Brescia Oggi
Visions and Sonatas, inspiration and melancholy
At this point, the program was over, but the audience did not want to leave this splendid artist. They were rewarded with no less than four encores... from a famous Etude by Chopin to a Sonata by Scarlatti, from a Prelude by Bach to an amazing interpretation of Liszt’s famous La Campanella, inspired by the Concerto of the same name by PaganiniOf course there wasn’t the large crowd of the opening night at the Grande Teatro for Pietro De Maria’s recital, the second concert of the International Piano Festival. The evening began with a public announcement regarding the safety measures and we realized that – for goodness sake, safety first – we’ll have to put up with them during the whole Festival.
Then came the program, a monographic homage as we all know, to Sergei Prokofiev on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. The concert began with the Russian composer’s Visions Fugitives op. 22 and it must be said that they turned out to be not only very interesting, but also very pleasant for the audience, aphoristically brief as they are: from the simple purity of the initial Lentamente to the dancing humor of the third piece, an Allegretto, from the refined piece in two parts, Con Eleganza to the grotesque and caustic Ridicolosamente, perhaps the most famous piece of the Visions Fugitives. Pietro De Maria showed that he can turn very suddenly in a musical discourse going from the ironic nature of the thirteenth piece to the harshness of the Feroce that recalls the caustic character of Sarcasmes, to the lyrical triptych presented toward the final part of the series and above all the agitation of the next to the last Vision, in which Prokofiev is said to have intended to represent the inflamed crowd at St. Petersburg during the revolution of 1917.
And so history breaks into the music, at least into certain passages by the Russian composer. We do not feel this in Sonata n. 5 op. 38 which Pietro De Maria offered the audience immediately after, with its 3 movements and that Allegro tranquillo in sonatina form, and that unusual and, at any rate, subtly sarcastic Andantino in the middle, and with a conclusion that flirts with the scherzo.
But the real test was yet to come in the Sonata n.6 in A major op. 82, that “wartime” sonata in which all the anguish for the terrible worldwide slaughter that was imminent emerges. Dissonance and harshness, a musical discourse full of power and almost brutality: all this the young pianist was able to evoke with his enormous care, interrupting the “barbaric” impetus only with the very slow, wistful waltz-time.
At this point, the program was over, but the audience did not want to leave this splendid artist. They were rewarded with no less than four encores, and if anyone feared, after so much Prokofiev, some tonal oddity, Pietro De Maria responded with pieces that reconciled everyone with the tonal system e con musical beauty in the traditional sense: from a famous Etude by Chopin to a Sonata by Scarlatti, from a Prelude by Bach to an amazing interpretation of Liszt’s famous La Campanella, inspired by the Concerto of the same name by Paganini.
A great success in perfect style: De Maria is reconfirmed as that young artist full of resources that we have already appreciated on several occasions.
At this point, the program was over, but the audience did not want to leave this splendid artist. They were rewarded with no less than four encores... from a famous Etude by Chopin to a Sonata by Scarlatti, from a Prelude by Bach to an amazing interpretation of Liszt’s famous La Campanella, inspired by the Concerto of the same name by PaganiniOf course there wasn’t the large crowd of the opening night at the Grande Teatro for Pietro De Maria’s recital, the second concert of the International Piano Festival. The evening began with a public announcement regarding the safety measures and we realized that – for goodness sake, safety first – we’ll have to put up with them during the whole Festival.
Then came the program, a monographic homage as we all know, to Sergei Prokofiev on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. The concert began with the Russian composer’s Visions Fugitives op. 22 and it must be said that they turned out to be not only very interesting, but also very pleasant for the audience, aphoristically brief as they are: from the simple purity of the initial Lentamente to the dancing humor of the third piece, an Allegretto, from the refined piece in two parts, Con Eleganza to the grotesque and caustic Ridicolosamente, perhaps the most famous piece of the Visions Fugitives. Pietro De Maria showed that he can turn very suddenly in a musical discourse going from the ironic nature of the thirteenth piece to the harshness of the Feroce that recalls the caustic character of Sarcasmes, to the lyrical triptych presented toward the final part of the series and above all the agitation of the next to the last Vision, in which Prokofiev is said to have intended to represent the inflamed crowd at St. Petersburg during the revolution of 1917.
And so history breaks into the music, at least into certain passages by the Russian composer. We do not feel this in Sonata n. 5 op. 38 which Pietro De Maria offered the audience immediately after, with its 3 movements and that Allegro tranquillo in sonatina form, and that unusual and, at any rate, subtly sarcastic Andantino in the middle, and with a conclusion that flirts with the scherzo.
But the real test was yet to come in the Sonata n.6 in A major op. 82, that “wartime” sonata in which all the anguish for the terrible worldwide slaughter that was imminent emerges. Dissonance and harshness, a musical discourse full of power and almost brutality: all this the young pianist was able to evoke with his enormous care, interrupting the “barbaric” impetus only with the very slow, wistful waltz-time.
At this point, the program was over, but the audience did not want to leave this splendid artist. They were rewarded with no less than four encores, and if anyone feared, after so much Prokofiev, some tonal oddity, Pietro De Maria responded with pieces that reconciled everyone with the tonal system e con musical beauty in the traditional sense: from a famous Etude by Chopin to a Sonata by Scarlatti, from a Prelude by Bach to an amazing interpretation of Liszt’s famous La Campanella, inspired by the Concerto of the same name by Paganini.
A great success in perfect style: De Maria is reconfirmed as that young artist full of resources that we have already appreciated on several occasions.
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