Années de pèlerinage II Deux Legendes

Description

Liszt's Roman Year will have encouraged pianists to all vices, languor or fury, but not Francesco Piemontesi, who continues his journey in the pilgrimage of the Hungarian virtuoso with a purity of tone, an absence of effect, elevating his Sonata "After reading Dante" to the same level as those, so numerous, of Claudio Arrau: no effect but a pure song and dizzying abysses. The Swiss pianist knows how to create astonishing spaces of retreat in a work that multiplies the keyboard. And all of this is always held, controlled; just listen to the song of joy before the coda. The Three Sonnets of Petrarch remind us of the beauty of Kempff's touch through their elevation, nothing less, and are as much contained declamations as prayers, evoking "Spozalizio," which opens the album, where Piemontesi gilds the treble of his piano like the background of a Lorenzetti. This entire second year, preceded by the "Sermon to the Birds of St. Francis of Assisi," is under his fingers an exaltation, a spiritual elevation, already the music of Abbé Liszt that goes to the edges of harmony and dissolves romanticism in ecstasy, a humble and perfect reading that struggles to hide the insane virtuoso who is the most poetic of pianists of his generation. As a bonus, an exciting DVD. (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)