MESSINA – Very welcome return to Messina, last Saturday, for the musical season of the Philharmonic Academy, of the pianist Andrea Padova, who has already performed several times in Messina, this time interpreter of a program entirely dedicated to Liszt entitled “Franz Liszt – Verdi, Wagner, Venice”.
The pianist dedicated the first part of the concert to some of Liszt’s transcriptions of works by Richard Wagner.
Franz Liszt was the author of innumerable transcriptions for piano of operas, symphonies and lies by musicians who were his contemporaries or his predecessors, and this meritorious activity, in an era in which music could only be heard live, contributed considerably to the diffusion of itself.
These are indeed transcriptions, not fantasies or paraphrases, where Liszt limited himself to transcribing the German composer’s famous operatic pieces on the piano.
The first transcription performed “Elsa traum” (Elsa’s dream) by Lohengrin is a short piece, where we were able to hear one of the most beautiful leitmotifs of the work, also present in the Prelude.
From The Flying Dutchman, Padova performed the transcription of two of the most famous songs, Spinnerlied (Song of the Spinners) and the Ballade. These are two successful transcriptions, which make the famous themes enjoyable, splendidly performed by the pianist, who exhibited his usual technical expertise with great confidence, but also his interpretative refinement, full of sensitivity, which was also and above all expressed , in the piece performed between the two transcriptions from “The Flying Dutchman”: Wolfram’s wonderful aria from the Tannahuser “O du mein holdern abendstern” (O you, my beautiful evening star), performed with enchanting lyricism.
Listening to the splendid themes of the Flying Dutchman brought to mind the amazing performance of the Leipzig Gewandhaus at the VE Theatre, way back in the 1980s, with great regret, given that we can now only listen to Wagner’s works through piano transcriptions, but that’s another story.
After the performance of “Sancta Dorothea” S.187, a little-known piece by Liszt, here are two extremely interesting pages, part of the Hungarian musician’s latest piano compositions.
“La lugubre gondola”, composed in Venice during the winter of 1882, where the musician lived together with Wagner, already ill, in Palazzo Vendramin, – a sort of premonition of the death that would soon strike his great friend, as well as husband of his daughter Cosima – is a piece of extraordinary modernity, spare, essential, almost devoid of tonal references, which anticipates by many years the atonal music of the Viennese school of the following century. The same goes for “RW – Venezia”, composed following the news of Wagner’s death, a painful and dry page, totally devoid of any pianistic virtuosity.
After the graceful “Premiere Valse Oublièe”, it was the turn of one of Liszt’s best-known pieces, “Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este”, taken from “Anni di pellegrinaggio”, a piece with a strong virtuosic component , a bit of an end in itself, which offered Padova the opportunity to exhibit his excellent piano technique.
The second part of the concert was dedicated to Italian opera, with “Reminiscenze di Boccanegra”, “Paraphrase sur Ernani” and “Valse de concert sur deux motifs de Lucia et Parisina”.
These are fantasies on the most famous themes of Verdi’s operas (Simon Boccanegra and Ernani) and Donizetti’s (Lucia di Lammermoor and Parisina) which differ from the transcriptions, as Padova also explained to the public, as they are autonomous compositions, which rework and the various themes vary, while the transcriptions limit themselves to faithfully reporting the themes on the keyboard. Reminiscences of Boccanegra, in particular, constitutes one of Liszt’s most successful paraphrases, although not as famous and performed as the one on Rigoletto.
Andrea Padova’s interpretation of these pieces, of considerable technical difficulty, is truly extraordinary, performed with disarming tranquility.
Ovations from the audience, reciprocated with two very welcome encores: a Sonata by Scarlatti, and the delightful Waltz Op. 69 n. 1 by Chopin.
In the room sheet I read that the pianist is currently recording the complete Mozart Sonatas, we therefore hope to see him again soon in Messina, to listen to him in some Mozart masterpieces.
Tags: Andrea Padova excites audience Palacultura
