From a Pianist's Workshop: Two Budding Mozarteans
(Chiara Bertoglio's performance at Carnegie was) "lovely" and "well-considered", and there were "handsomely shaped phrases", "cleanly dispatched passageworks", "a concert proved beneficial to the audience".
Marin and young Bertoglio for Beethoven�s Spring Sonata
Two musicians, well-known to the Italian audience, i.e. young pianist Chiara Bertoglio and violinist Massimo Marin performed in duo last evening, confirming their gifts. Chiara Bertoglio is very young but already very successful in an international career bringing her to concert halls in whole Europe and (next December) to Carnegie Hall in New York. Marin, a professor at Turin Conservatory, is too well-known to need a presentation.
The program was extremely interesting. Beethoven�s Spring Sonata opened the concert, and the two musicians amused themselves very much emphasizing its two faces: at one side an intense and shining lyricism, at the other a light humour revealing a less-known aspect of Beethoven�s music.
Immediately after, Marin performed Bach�s Chaconne, this majestic sound monument, a true prodigy of baroque splendour obtained with an extraordinary economy of means: that lonely violin, in fact, is seen as the hole in a kaleidoscope, where appear the most fantastic figures generated by variations on the beginning theme. To this great Chaconne Chiara Bertoglio put near its reflected image, playing Brahms� transcription for the left hand: a faithful pianistic tracing of that far model, worked on with the goal of offering to performers a technical exercise, but also of mastering a writing technique and an art that will have on Brahms a positive influence.
Brahms again to end the concert, with Violin Sonata op. 108, where the two performers gave the best of themselves, emphasizing the intensity of singing and form complexity. So the most enthusiastic applause came from the audience.
Surprising clear Pictures
Young Turinese pianist shines in the Bach Hall
Old castles, quarrelling children, chickens in their hatch, the dead people�s talks, ferocious witches and mighty bells: it is worthy to take part to this sound walk. Chiara Bertoglio, invited last Tuesday in Kiel, in the exquisite concert series by the Italian-German Society, has everything that Mussorgskij�s cycle asks for, e.g. explosive power, feline quickness, but above all a poetical mood that makes situations imagined by the internal ears and eyes of the hearer. With a surprising measured use of the pedal, she gives with incredible clearness the expressive moments of lighthood, and bounds them with perfectly balanced chord passages in the intermezzi. This could not be better placed than in the Bach-Hall of the Musicology Institute, where it took place. She concluded with a most quick effect piece by Villa-Lobos. But also before the pause, the young Turinese pianist showed that her sensitive and quick finger are controlled by heart and head. In a surprising original way she differenced and gave soul to the variations in the B-flat Impromptu op. 142 by Schubert. Here all was sung with a crystal clearness and richly shaded, livingly pointed and tenderly dreamt.
Virtuoso, brilliant and royal: Chiara Bertoglio at the piano
The castle concert series: young artist excites - audience asks for three encores
With Chiara Bertoglio we get acquainted with a new highly gifted pianistic talent, in the concert series �Il Pianoforte all�Italiana�, by the Italian Culture Institute in Wolfsburg castle.
The pianist show then an almost inexhaustible power in Mussorgskij�s Pictures at an Exhibition, suggested to him by the pictures of the painter Viktor Hartmann. With great sensitivity and fantasy she gave shape to the paintings� character, as the �Gnomus� or the Polish oxen cart �Bydlo�; the delightful Ballet of the chickens, the quarrel between the wealthy Samuel Goldenberg and poor Schmuyle, up to Baba-Yaga�s hut and the impressive final picture, �The Great Gate of Kiew�, and called to life true sound portraits.
The hearers, totally enthusiastically, clapped to obtain three encores, among them, as a contrasting conclusion, the Busoni arrangement of Bachian Choral �Wachet auf�, and the sparkling and fresh virtuosity of Villa-Lobos� �Punch�.
Chiara Bertoglio creates musical sensations
An exciting concert by the Turinese pianist in Wolfsburg castle
Monday evening, in the Garden Hall of Wolfsburg castle: determined, the 19-years-old Turinese pianist Chiara Bertoglio takes place at the piano, and presents to the audience a chosen program, with pieces by Franz Schubert and Modest Mussorgskij. From time to time, she makes us hearers forget that she has, to play the music, only a keyboard instrument, and not a whole orchestra.
She plays the Impromptus n. 2 and 3 from Schubert�s op. 142. N. 2 is one of the best beloved pieces by Schubert. Chiara Bertoglio makes the music flutter harmoniously, meets the melodic flow of the work; a flow that rises as from high, with powerful brilliance. As if hearing herself, she gives form to the rhythmical accents. She plans subtly the intensity changes, shows clearly the musical and harmonic changes, while showing with strong contrast the grey movements of the ground and the sound lightings.
With visible fun the young artist presents the variations in the virtuoso B-flat Impromptu. She seems to make narrower with affection to this music: scales and ornaments shine in quick and round movements, like a gushing spring. She lightens always with brilliance, and highlights the melodies and the coloured light and atmosphere changes of the music.
Animated by the Lied �Der Wanderer� is the C-major Fantasy by Schubert. And this is seized by Chiara Bertoglio, and presents in the �Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo� the first movement of this work, while extracting by her playing the whole sound power of the instrument. Impatiently, with stormy rectitude, she leads the beginning chords, and feels the many layers of the musical sensations, that change so quick in the Wanderer�s soul. Here you hear the Wanderer�s hurry, then, especially in the Adagio, you hear sounds that, in their fine stratifications, express at the same time the desolation feeling and the melancholic hope. The pianist characterized then the Presto with surprising variety. She begins it sturdy aggressive, then shifts quickly with hopping passages, almost hyper-enthusiastic, and ends like in a rounding dance. The last movement, with a romantic and brilliant fantasy and to a rich virtuosity, gives to the artist the opportunity to shine once more.
And she played with bravura, so that people waited with excitement for the interpretation of the Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgskij. Outlining clearly the requested walking, Chiara Bertoglio shows the theme of the Promenade, that, a genial idea of the composer, bounds the single Pictures of the work like a lead. The pianist wanders in harmony with the Pictures� character, reflecting evidently the visitor�s feelings in front of the pictures. Don�t you see here the Gnomus falling and hiding himself? Doesn�t the singer dream in the love nostalgia in front of the Old Castle? Or doesn�t the oxen cart approach in Bydlo, in an infinite crescendo efficaciously breaking? With light fingers she bounds the pearl chains of the trills in the Chickens� Ballet, and makes the repeated notes vibrate in the Wealthy and Poor Jews� talk. And full of variety, in a quick tempo, is the Limoges Market Picture.
With effect pauses the pianist intensifies the mysterious silences of the Catacombae, to draw then the picture of the Witch�s Hut with a breaking force. With a great sound she shapes the picture of the Great Gate in Kiew, up to the impressive conclusion. The hearers clap very long, enthusiastically, and the artist thanks with three encores.
�With the greatest concentration, Chiara Bertoglio plays Felix Mendelssohn�s Concerto for piano and orchestra in g minor op. 25. Already from the first strikes it was clear that a thoroughbred musician was sitting at the piano. Extremely precise and dynamic, she lets her finger run on the keys. The young soloist is very joyful in playing, and plays her part perfectly� An applause rises from the audience and the members of the orchestra.
But all the previous disappeared after the pause in the shade of Maurice Ravel�s G-major Piano Concerto. This regarded the quality of the work like the performance. Outstanding the young italian soloist Chiara Bertoglio. Wonderful also the Schubert�s Impromptu she added.
Culmination was undoubtedly Maurice Ravel�s Piano Concerto in G major. This Concerto was absolutely wonderfully performed by the Italian pianist Chiara Bertoglio in a deep co-operation with the Youth Orchestra. The virtuose at the piano came expressly for this aim from Turin, Italy. It has been worthwhile!
