Giovanni Bertolazzi at the Pharos Arts Foundation in Cyprus
Power and Poetry combine with Mastery
Some remarkable playing at the Pharos Arts Foundation from the young Italian virtuoso Giovanni Bertolazzi. A programme that ranged from the imperious nobility of the Bach Chaconne through the driving intensity of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata to Liszt’s ravishing revisitation of Verdi and his funabulistic vision of Dante.
Fearless dynamic drive and power was contrasted with ravishing beauty and whispered seduction from a pianist who has a story to share with intelligence and mastery. The Bach Chaconne in Busoni’s miraculous ‘elaborazione concertistica per pianoforte a due mani’,immediately opened with nobility and breathtaking authority. There were dramatic contrasts from the imperious to the almost expressionless innocence with a quite extraordinary command of the keyboard and of the three pedals. A technical mastery that allows him to play the left hand octaves with lightweight ease without ever having to accommodate the surge of inner energy that Bach’s genius could incorporate on a single violin line. The whispered repeated notes between the hands ‘tranquillo’ and ‘subito piano’ had just as much impact as the mighty fortissimo passages that followed .There was a masterly control that could pass from one layer of sound to another. ‘Quasi tromboni’ Busoni writes and Giovanni finding a heartrending richness at the beginning of the build up to the mighty climax and the final glorious declamation ‘largamente maestoso’ and the blaze of glory that Busoni brings to this Chaconne with devastating effect. Giovanni entering into this world of majesty and nobility with authoritative abandon on this magnificent instrument and if sometimes the bass notes were overpowering it was the energy behind the notes that enthralled and astonished an audience that had not expected such youthful mastery from the very first notes.
Read more here at Christopher Axworthy’s blog
