Giulia Contaldo at the National Liberal Club
‘Mind and heart at the service of the music’
This was the final concert in a series of six recitals sponsored so generously by the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation in collaboration with the National Liberal Club’s Asia Circle. It had begun with a greeting to the founder of the Keyboard Trust ,John Leech. Unable to attend this evening but who will be 99 years old in a few day’s time and a greeting from us all was recorded and will be shown to him and his wife Noretta Conci on his birthday of Sunday the 21st April.
Giulia Contaldo enchanted and entranced the audience of the Liberal Club with playing of superb musicianship and a kaleidoscope not only of colours but of intense concentration as she told a story of wondrous marvels.
A Respighi Nocturne of ethereal beauty but also of passionate outpourings of overwhelming intensity
A Debussy of fluidity and aristocratic control allied to a technical mastery that allowed the fleeting lightness of ‘movement’ to sweep across the keys with transcendental mastery.
The passionate intensity she brought to Wagner’s Liebestod was even more astonishing for the palette of colours that she used to paint a picture of burning intensity and searing inner murmurings
But it was in Schubert that her great artistry was revealed to the full with playing of aristocratic control as she allowed Schubert’s mellifluous outpourings to speak with heart rending immediacy and simplicity.
Read more here at Christopher Axworthy’s blog
