PRESS REVIEWS 2001-2002
Luciano Berio, one of the main highlights of the contemporary
music, should have personally directed the concert that tonight, as a tribute to
him, the Verdi Orchestra will perform at the Auditorium ... Last Monday he was
cheered as well by the "Musical Evenings" at the La Scala Theater Museum,
with a meeting which had its climax in the performance of Andrea Bacchetti, who
played a selection of piano scores ...
Auditorium, tribute to Berio - Gala evening dedicated to Luciano Berio, in the presence of the Composer
La Repubblica - March 22nd, 2001 (Paola Zonica)
... Honestly, we didn't expect to witness a high level concert.
Andrea Bacchetti (never judge a book by its cover!) doesn't act as a Showbiz
Star, but since the first moments you can guess you are in front of one of
the great pianists of these days ... he really erased that "déjà vu"
sensation building, as a born Creator, his bright building, characterized
by an extraordinary sense of rythm and structure ... the different themes
were developed with, it seemed to me, a dense and challenging boldness ...
Andrea Bacchetti astonished us with his extraordinary artistic personality.
Great Virtuoso and born Creator
Luxemburger Wort - May 2nd, 2001 (André Link)
Last wednesday, Carlo Felice Theatre hosted a peculiar concert
which challenged in a direct confrontation two different (but complementary)
musical expressions, the interpretation of the classic scores together with
the Afro-American improvisation. The protagonists were two incontestable piano
talents of the Genoese artistic world, the performer Andrea Bacchetti and the
jazz player Dado Moroni ... Absolutely gorgeus Moroni, with his unstoppable
virtuosism and his blues-like sound taste ... more sober, intimate and poetical,
Bacchetti performed in a really inspiring way ...
His Bach's reading was absolutely exemplar, extremely cured on the sound side and the accents, always with an excellent phrasing even when more undisclosed. The same considerations are worthy for Beethoven as well ... played with a great rythmic freedom and timbrical galore ... Bacchetti offered a connection clue with the jazz world playing a Gershwin's Prelude ... Among the encores, a breathtaking Chopin by Bacchetti and a kind of strange blues - inspired by the chords of a popular children's song - from Dado Moroni. Endless applauses for both of them.
His Bach's reading was absolutely exemplar, extremely cured on the sound side and the accents, always with an excellent phrasing even when more undisclosed. The same considerations are worthy for Beethoven as well ... played with a great rythmic freedom and timbrical galore ... Bacchetti offered a connection clue with the jazz world playing a Gershwin's Prelude ... Among the encores, a breathtaking Chopin by Bacchetti and a kind of strange blues - inspired by the chords of a popular children's song - from Dado Moroni. Endless applauses for both of them.
An inspiring duel between classical and jazz music
Corriere Mercantile, Genoa - June 29th, 2001 (Aurelio Canonici)
Unruly genius! It's actually a common place in the Romantic
imaginary, which accompanied the reputation of the greatest artists and sill
nowadays it appears perfectly up-to-date ... As it concerns Andrea Bacchetti,
Genoese 24 years old pianist who played on the Trento Philarmonic Society's
billboard last thursday, this binomial adjective seems to be perfectly suitable
... it's all about his way of playing music and, more precisely, about his
so-called interpretational choices. There's actually more than a reason which
can display him as "genius" or as "unruly", it all depends
from anyone's point of view. First of all, the tempo management which Bacchetti
allows to himself is everything but inside the fences of a "normal"
acceptability, never cheap and absolutely unpredictable. If, in certain moments,
everybody could consider it outrageous, under another less formal point of view
this attitude could reveal itself even brightening ... together with the complicity
of tightened phrasings and accents, completely out from flat scholastic expectations
... Again, the strong prominence given to the rythmic elements in syncopation and
countertime or the fine taste for the dissonance inside the polyphonic texture
could - in the end - become deliciously interesting ...
Bacchetti: unruly genius in an unexpected concert at the Philarmonic
L'Adige, Trento - October 14th, 2001 (S.F.)
... Lucky hand which allows him to flawlessly master even the
most dire moments in the choosen scores, but essentially a versatile interpretative
personality, all strained towards a continuous quest for the most intimate meanings
of the music, assorted with a criteria which could be easily defined as "classic".
The audience which filled the Piccinini (Theatre), where Bacchetti played for the
Bari Music Brotherhood, could enjoy a Bach "refurbished" with fine softnesses
but also with a flawless and accurate style, a Beethoven (op. 10 nr. 2) a little less
"dishevelled" than the usual belief wants him to be, an absolutely vigorous
even if openly lyrical (Andante assai) Prokoviev, and eventually a gleaming and musical Liszt.
The programme included also Six Small Portraits by Francesco Antonioni ... brief pages of fresh inventiveness, various and tasteful in which there are continuous changes from the simplicity to the complexity and back, with various styles and techniques, but always with more than fascinating results ... performed by Bacchetti with strong intuition and convinced accuracy. In the end lots of applauses and nothing less than three encores, with famous scores by Chopin, Gershwin and Scarlatti.
The programme included also Six Small Portraits by Francesco Antonioni ... brief pages of fresh inventiveness, various and tasteful in which there are continuous changes from the simplicity to the complexity and back, with various styles and techniques, but always with more than fascinating results ... performed by Bacchetti with strong intuition and convinced accuracy. In the end lots of applauses and nothing less than three encores, with famous scores by Chopin, Gershwin and Scarlatti.
Andrea Bacchetti at the piano: far more than a promise
La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, Bari - December 1st, 2001 (Nicola Sbisà)
... Andrea Bacchetti, soloist in the last concert organised by
Amici della Musica (Friends of the Music) ... In the programme there's Mozart's
Concert K413 and the Konzert Rondò K 386; the performer is accompanied by the Chopin
Chamber Orchestra directed by Boguslaw Dawidow. Bacchetti's touch is among the
most beautiful things I ever heard: wonderful, smooth, excellent ... maybe, for my
personal taste, a little bit too monotone, but in every moment perfect in its sound
carving. His absolutely personal interpretative choices are bearers of a breathtaking
musicality, challenging and incisive enough to be remembered and discussed after
the concert. And it's always good, when a performance makes itself discuss upon.
... At the end of his perfect interpretation ... Bacchetti sits again and again (for three times) in front if his piano, in a three-sided encore which has to be considered simply unbelievable: Gershwin, Bach and Scarlatti. With total control and nonchalance, he really jumps from a composer to another, and back, showing his power to give every score a personal and always peculiar impression, in a captivating, interesting and absolutely unique point of view for every composer he decides to interprete.
... At the end of his perfect interpretation ... Bacchetti sits again and again (for three times) in front if his piano, in a three-sided encore which has to be considered simply unbelievable: Gershwin, Bach and Scarlatti. With total control and nonchalance, he really jumps from a composer to another, and back, showing his power to give every score a personal and always peculiar impression, in a captivating, interesting and absolutely unique point of view for every composer he decides to interprete.
A young pianist's wizardries
Corriere della Sera, Milan - January 27th, 2002 (Matteo Luigi Piricò)
... We had the chance to listen to an extraordinary interpretation
of Bach's Sonata in E maj op. 109, as the final act of a long and intense recital
which was opened with Bach's sixth English Suite, Brahms' Fantasien op. 116 and
Beethoven's (again) two Sonatine op. 49. An astonishing performance, both on the
side of the formal accuracy and on the side of fantasy, proportional sense and
exquisite charme of the phrasing; but also for the subtle pleasure in challenging
and exploiting the instrument itself, to achieve its ultimate potentialities. An
intimate moment of peace and oblivion, a lyrical and soothing breath which easily
soars beyond the fantastic aptitude ...
Beloved score, but also utmost difficult and risky in its reading ... under the young and strong fingers of Andrea Bacchetti, the Sonata op. 109 has become an uninterrupted game of questions and answers, echoes and calls, set on a kind of twoness ... The beginning was already outlining itself as full of mystery and almost undertone, as if coming from far away, melting after a while with vague softness and careful sweetness, soon contradicted by a majestic crescendo that gradually began to fade and to be replaced by a strong and igorous scherzo, chasing and richfully textured, with an accurate control on the rythmical side and on the key lunge, with a wide and marblelike phrasing. Only during the real spreading of the wonderful theme which opens the third movement we could understand that - until then - we just were able to witness a sort of approach to a musical world from which we had been banned ...
Beloved score, but also utmost difficult and risky in its reading ... under the young and strong fingers of Andrea Bacchetti, the Sonata op. 109 has become an uninterrupted game of questions and answers, echoes and calls, set on a kind of twoness ... The beginning was already outlining itself as full of mystery and almost undertone, as if coming from far away, melting after a while with vague softness and careful sweetness, soon contradicted by a majestic crescendo that gradually began to fade and to be replaced by a strong and igorous scherzo, chasing and richfully textured, with an accurate control on the rythmical side and on the key lunge, with a wide and marblelike phrasing. Only during the real spreading of the wonderful theme which opens the third movement we could understand that - until then - we just were able to witness a sort of approach to a musical world from which we had been banned ...
Mesmerizing concert of the pianist Andrea Bacchetti
Il Resto del Carlino - April 17th, 2002 (Sergio Garbato)
... The young Genoese who conviced everyone with two English
Suites (the 4th and the 5th) and two French Suites (the 5th and the 6th) by Bach:
a stiff and risky programme that - if played by flat-fantasy performers - could
have driven the audience to a lethargic wreck. Bur Bacchetti is talented; he
possesses extraordinary technical gifts as well as strong and convincing ideas ...
as soon as he lets his hands fall on the keyboard, singing an absolutely pianistic
Bach, in the middle between Gould and Schiff (just think of the legato smoothness,
of the sound thickness in the Sarabande or in some ouverture movements of the
razor-sharp themes of the Gigas, of the crescendos effectiveness, of the
astonishing expressive instinctiveness of the embellishments, of the majestic
use of the pedals), his personality conquers the importance of an experienced
performer. The subtle seduction operated by the Chopinian encores confirmed
every foresight. We'll soon hear about him.
Bacchetti, young and yet mature pianist
Il Piccolo, Giornale di Trieste - October 2nd, 2002 (Sergio Cimarosti)
... The most renowned name in the exhibition (even on an
international level) despite his young age ... The first proposed piece has
been Bach's English Suite in F maj; the touch seemed to be at one moment dry
and hammering, then smooth and intense; the singing was therefore ensured a
continuous and sharp evidence through a deeply meditated reading. The programme
then offered four Berio's Encores, really very likable, which complexity ran
beyond the mere technical difficulties. Chopin followed immediately after,
by whom Bacchetti proposed, after the "evergreen" Berceuse in D-moll,
the series of the four Improvvisi where the normally velveted sound became
every now and then purposedly dry, reserving inside itself an ultimate
backthought, full of energy, utmost personal, absolutely convincing ...
Bacchetti's piano gives back an eventually cliché-free Chopin
La nuova Venezia - October 9th, 2002 (Cecilia Palandri)
Every concert of "pure", absolute music conjures in
front of the audience many other, not-musical, feelings. And these feelings
are more and more deep when they manage to catch up with each single member
of the audience, because fundamentally the Art - created by a single Artist -
is always aimed not to a multitude but to a single person ... in order to be
able to reach their souls. This feelings have been provided to us during
Beethoven's 4th Concert in Gmaj for piano Op. 58, performed by an Italian
artist - already well-known among Opole's audience - Andrea Bacchetti. The
artist played in an accurate and wise way, his mind and his fingers
"knew" every fraseggio and every note, thus building a very
enthralling emotional tension ...
Orfeusz przy fortepianie (Orfeo at the piano)
NIO, Opole (Poland) - November 12th, 2002 (Radislaw Malkowski)
... the figure of Andrea Bacchetti has been assuming its own importance, in terms
of originality with respect to certain efficiency models to which the young Genoese
pianist seems to want to oppose more inventive paths. It is significant that he
thought of outlining his intentions in a sort of self-portrait composed of three CDs,
the last of which sees two Mozart Sonatas juxtaposed with Luciano Berio's 6 Encores;
almost as if to show how the stylistic abyss that separates the two composers becomes
a source of stimulus for the interpreter. Who, if on the one hand unleashes a nonchalant,
eloquent Mozart, never starched in any way, on the other penetrates Berio's networks
with a determination that is equal to the curiosity to seek out what reasons are hidden
behind the most discovered diagram of the game ...
Piano CD Reviews
Classic Voice - nr.43 December 2002, Gian Paolo Minardi
... A very original and nice Mozart that of our young interpreter, full of curious and
fascinating details, little romantic softnesses - especially in the two andantes - and
small surges, hesitations and peckish, but also some casual light-hearted attitude ...
The same interest in the timbre - and I would almost like to say in the phrasing - can
be found in Berio's pieces, to which Bacchetti gives a truly musical meaning and naturalness
as a great interpreter of twentieth-century music ...
Artistic Judgment: 9 ** Technical Judgment: 8
Artistic Judgment: 9 ** Technical Judgment: 8
CD Reviews
Compact Disc Classics - nr.24 December 2002, Riccardo Risaliti
TOPANDREA BACCHETTI Official Web Site