Andrea Bacchetti (piano)
Live at Fazioli Concert Hall
Andrea Bacchetti (piano)
rec. live, Fazioli Concert Hall, Sacile, Italy
Artemisia Art0274 [75]
This release is a digital-only title. I don’t have hands-on with booklet notes and recording details, and there is a limit to the amount of time one can search online for scraps of information. This is in part the result of a sequence of minor tussles with streaming services that insist you sign up for a ‘free trial’ to obtain any information, and a lack of the usual download link we reviewers find useful when asked to write reviews. I ended up listening to the album on YouTube, which is ok if as a non-subscriber you are prepared to put up with the regular interruption of advertisements.
Whatever the pitfalls of modern listening in this digital age, this is a substantial and fine recital from a pianist I have encountered many times in the past on labels such as Italian Decca, Dynamic, RCA/Sony Classical and Arthaus. Bacchetti’s Bach is delivered with clarity and intellectual insight, comparable in some ways with Glenn Gould but without the quirky mannerisms. The selection here is something of a pot-pourri but one which forms a nice expressive arc, and with little surprises such as the Aria from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook, which turns out to be the one that frames the Goldberg Variations.
Mozart’s Fantasia KV 397 is given all of the darkness and light it deserves, and Liszt’s songful Consolation in D flat major is an oasis of reflective romanticism. Louis Diémer is a new name to me. It seems he was better known as a pianist than a composer, and as a founder of the Société des Instruments Anciens was a pioneer of early music and rediscovery of the harpsichord. His Nocturne in D flat major pairs nicely with the Liszt, and is a pleasant salon-style piece with a subtly shaped narrative line. This style acts as a transition to Debussy’s imagery, with the tidal darkness-to-light colouration in La Cathédrale engloutie particularly effective.
If this was my programme we would follow this climactic Debussy with an interval, starting the second half with the light touch of Mendelssohn’s elegantly romantic style. All of these pieces have their connection with song in one way or another. Bacchetti is of course excellent in balancing each melody with its accompaniment and in expressing this composer’s poetic inclinations, and the ‘Spinning Song’ is a virtuoso tour-de-force. The programme selection and ordering has a way of pointing out connections between these composers, and Chopin’s Nocturnes could as easily be called songs without words, Bacchetti heightening the drama in Op. 9 No. 1 and observing restraint with his rubatoin Op. 9 No. 2 by letting the music speak for itself.
We are tipped into the programme’s closing stretch with the quiet rumination of Schumann’s Mignon, a deliberate contrast to the fireworks of Chopin’s Etude Op. 10 No. 5. Encore rewards are delivered with the puppet antics of Villa-Lobos’ O Polichinelo, and some farewell lounge jazz in Henry Mancini’s Moon River, which as we all know was an award-winning part of the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Bacchetti has long championed the use of Fazioli instruments, and has recorded in the Fazioli Concert Hall before (review). This is a fairly dry acoustic, and more so with an audience present, so don’t expect a demonstration sound with much atmosphere or resonance. This is the kind of environment in which Bacchetti’s intelligent and subtly colourful playing thrives however, and the piano is of course well recorded with plenty of detail, with only the occasional audience cough and applause included at appropriate moments.
Dominy Clements
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Contents
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Toccata in E minor BWV 914 in E Minor
Chorale in A minor BWV 691 in A Minor
Prelude in C major from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook in C Major
Menuet in G major Anh 114 in G Major
Aria from Anna Magdalena’s notebook
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Fantasia in D flat major, KV 397
Franz Liszt (1811-1846)
Consolation in D flat major
Louis Diémer (1843-1919)
Nocturne in D flat major
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Bruyères
La Cathédrale engloutie
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Gondellied Op. 30 No. 6 in F Sharp Minor
Romanze in F major
Song without words in A major Op. 19b No. 4
Song without words in G major Op. 62 No. 1
Song without words in C major Op. 67 No. 4 Spinning Song
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Nocturne in B flat minor Op. 9 No. 1
Nocturne in E flat major Op. 9 No. 2
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Mignon from album für die Jugend Op. 68
Frédéric Chopin
Etude in G flat major Op. 10 No. 5 in G Sharp Minor
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
O Polichinelo
Henri Mancini (1924-1994)
Moon River
