Elia Cessino, in a concert for IMAS, took to the Bangalore International Center stage with a spectacular performance, her strong left hand asserting her arrival in Liszt’s Valse S407 from Gounod’s opera, Faust.

It is no surprise that Liszt, a lover of good tune, transcribed many of the opera’s most famous tunes. However, he never allowed his enormous creative energy to drown out the original tunes, nor let them get buried under his eccentric inventions. His technically challenging concerto paraphrases are popular in the concert repertoire, perhaps because they often seem unattainable for a pianist with only two hands!

Sessino’s tilt uff [fortissimo]He was given a lot of chances, especially with his left hand. tight And disjointed manner sections of the waltz, but at no point was that grand hummable tune lost in the musical vocabulary, with the waltz reasserting itself with deep familiarity. The extraordinary waltz theme is recapitulated glissando With flourishes and subtle shifts in the upper register, Liszt’s penchant for the monstrous draws Mephistopheles, hidden in Faustian shadows. Cecino provided dynamic variations and chromatic extensions to the melody in exuberant measure, highlighting the sensuous, dramatic emotional impact of this sensual piece.

If one felt a comfortable release from Liszt in the following section, it was an illusory relief, for Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Schumann, op.9F, also required virtuosity of feeling and technique. This is actually a difficult piece to play well, requiring true mastery of the keyboard and honest artistry, focusing on the slow and reflective bass line and harmony rather than the melody.

Brahms was only 20 when he first met Schumann, and this early work was both a tribute to him, written for Clara, but based on Robert’s theme, which had been written when the older composer was depressed. Were. Robert Schumann’s final mental decline and hospitalization occurred a few months after his initial meeting and support with Brahms. Brahms was allowed to visit Robert in the asylum [while Clara was not!] And so he was their chief mediator. His first published large-scale set of variations for solo piano, Op.9, is closely linked to the events of Schumann’s decline. Whereas most variation sets are in major-key themes, so that there is scope to explore more keys, this theme is in a minor-key, perhaps to emphasize the intrinsically tragic circumstances of the piece.

Looking for a clear narrative connection between the Variations, one finds it only in Brahms’s relationship with Robert and Clara. Filled with many layers and hidden messages, they capture the sadness of campus manage a trio, many variations between male and female voices appear like dialogues. In an effort to immortalize Robert’s former brilliant compositional abilities, Brahms was moving the conversation forward with the works of the once stoic composer.

Elia Cessino introduced each piece by talking to the audience before playing it. , Photo credit: Courtesy: eliacecino.it/en/

Clara, candidly, said of Brahms, “He will first find the real field for his genius when he begins to write for orchestra”. Given the symphonic affiliations in the variations, Cecino said that, when practicing, he searches for ways to bring these orchestral effects to the keyboard, focusing on how to recreate their instrumental resonance and Let them stay at the piano for a long time.

Cecino also said that when practicing Liszt, he slows down his playing very much, so that he can examine all the elements of the piece separately and in relation to each other. This enables him to capture the real emotions behind the piece, rather than focusing solely on its technique. Such analysis is impossible in actual performance, where the performer is swept up in stormy Lisztian delirium, and finds no time for reflection.

Cecino introduced his pieces in the now accepted performance code, by talking to the audience, giving their opinion on what he was about to play. His boyish charm enabled one to overlook his halting English, and once he got to the keyboard, he needed no other language except music.

This was followed by another piece by Liszt, although very different in mood and content. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, S. 161 was inspired by the Italian Renaissance poet’s sonnet, addressed to his beloved Laura. The sonnet sequence depicts love in its various moods, ‘Pace no trovo’ [“I find no peace”] Being about the yearning of unfulfilled love, the poet is feeling trapped in a situation of his own making, yet enjoying his captivity. The poet is surrounded by thoughts of unrequited love as well as mortality. Liszt originally set the sonnets in song form, which he abandoned and instead wrote them for piano. But he retained a sensitivity to the text and Liszt’s musical presentation is his own response to the poem.

Absorbed in his Romantic universe, Liszt’s composition allows for subtle musicality, allowing the pianist to shape phrases, which Cecino did with admirable shade and nuance, combining the poem’s atmosphere and emotions with emotional music that combines lyricism and Fluctuates between passions. Liszt’s theatricality abounded with octaves, double notes, long trills and augmented chords in fortissimo, all of which the pianist managed with aplomb.

In a bold move, Cecino concluded with a contemporary work, Orazio Sciortino Nuovo sonata del Petrarca, It was linked to earlier Liszt and Brahms, establishing its place in the program with its mood and emotion. Sessino got its US premiere in 2022, and we had the pleasure of hearing its Indian premiere. Sciortino is a 40-year-old Milanese musician who is a recognizable role model for 21.^{scheduled tribe} century, open to the new, yet with a strong base in tradition, so that his spirit freed from the ideologies of the past could embrace the present, making his talent recognizably individual.

Sciortino’s “Harmonic Pollution” may not have been to everyone’s taste, but it proved that Sciortino’s Romantic vocabulary could bridge several centuries, and was another demonstration of his dramatic ability.

The encore was necessarily a finale with the gentle Chopin. waltzBut the lasting impression of the performance was of a delightfully confident young man, able to express [unexpected in a 23-year-old] With unprecedented technology and excellence.