Gian Francesco Malipiero - Piano Concertos (Sandro Ivo Bartoli)

Information

Composer: Gian Francesco Malipiero

• Piano Concerto No. 1
• Piano Concerto No. 2
• Piano Concerto No. 3
• Piano Concerto No. 4
• Piano Concerto No. 5
• Piano Concerto No. 6 "delle macchine"
• Variazioni senza tema

Sandro Ivo Bartoli, piano

Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken

Michele Carulli, conductor

Date: 2007

Label: CPO

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

Malipiero’s six piano concertos span a good bit of his long life (he died in 1973, aged 91) and they are all of a piece. With timings of around 15 minutes, they are too short to have much of a chance of being performed live, and they’re too quirky to make it into lighter “pops” concerts. But they have very real charms, not least of which is that they sound like no one else. The keyboard writing is elegant, never heavy, and beautifully integrated into the music’s ongoing flow. Malipiero’s scoring also is generally restrained and translucent, with hints of Respighi’s modal “Gregorianism” in the earlier works, and a more knotty but still obviously tuneful chromaticism from the Fourth Concerto on.

Formally Malipiero doesn’t seem at all constrained by the German tradition. Indeed, both in terms of length and style, with their toccata-like textures in the quick outer movements and aria-like central lentos, these are more concertos in the Baroque sense, save that they don’t sound “neo” anything. In short, say what you will about their viability on the concert stage, these works have real personality and style, and it’s wonderful to have them conveniently packaged together.

Pianist Sandro Ivo Bartoli offers nicely pointed, fluid accounts of these undemanding works, and the booklet photo of him doing his Mona Lisa impression is (unintentionally?) amusing. Michele Carulli and the orchestra accompany well, and the SACD multichannel recording offers natural balances and plenty of detail. There’s something quietly compelling here. I’ve already played this set several times, and will surely return to it with pleasure in the near future. Give it a shot.

— David Hurwitz

-----------------------------------------------------------

Gian Francesco Malipiero (18 March 1882 – 1 August 1973) was an Italian composer and music scholar. Educated in Vienna, Venice and Bologna, he was later influenced by modernist trends in Paris. A key figure in 20th-century Italian music alongside Alfredo Casella, Malipiero rejected verismo and revived interest in pre-Romantic Italian music. His major works include operas, symphonies, chamber music and cantatas. As a scholar, he edited the complete works of Monteverdi and contributed to editions of Vivaldi, Corelli and Frescobaldi, significantly shaping the modern understanding of early Italian music.

***

Sandro Ivo Bartoli (born 10 February 1970 in Pisa) is an Italian pianist. A graduate of the Florence Conservatory and London's Royal Academy of Music, he was mentored by Shura Cherkassky, who also encouraged him to explored the early 20th-century Italian piano music. Bartoli subsequently reintroduced works by composers like Casella, Malipiero, Pizzetti and Respighi, performing across Europe with major orchestras and conductors. Renowned for his virtuosity and tonal color, Bartoli's discography includes award-winning recordings of Malipiero, Respighi, Liszt and Bach-Busoni transcriptions.

-----------------------------------------------------------