Photo Courtesy of www.mixturr.blogspost.com
By Jack Baszkiewicz
Kasser Theatre is known for its unusual programming of contemporary music. On Saturday evening, pianist Marino Formenti brought a recital program that was both eccentric and virtuosic.
Entitled “Kurtág’s Ghosts,” the recital paid homage to the active Hungarian composer György Kurtág by juxtaposing his shorter works with older piano pieces of various composers that had inspired him. Formenti calls the interaction between old and new piano works “dialoguing,” where adjacent pieces “speak” to each other through similar rhythm, melody or harmony. The end result was two giant halves of a recital, separated only by a brief intermission, which jumped back and forth between the present and past of classical music. Spanning 700 years and nine countries, a huge variety of composers were represented. Under Formenti’s artistry, however, their differences welded into a unified stream of music.
Formenti claimed in his program notes that “György Kurtág’s music is…full of explicit images to, memories of, echoes from…” The pianist’s love for Kurtág accumulated in an intensely researched program fitting together the old masters and their respective tributes. An example among many was the combination of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Catacombs” with Kurtág’s “Hommage a Muszorkszkij,” which sounded like an eerie coda that Mussorgsky, himself, might have written in a schizophrenic fit.
In each recital half, where thirty short works were played with little or no pause, it was often tough to notice where one ended and the next began. Formenti had hardly cleared the pedal after concluding Beethoven’s sixteen-second Bagatelle Op. 119 before launching into Béla Bartók’s sixth Romanian Folk Dance. The result was astonishing: Formenti used the pedal to connect the line of musical tradition, breaking barriers of chronology, style and nationality.
More astonishing was the rate at which he switched from somber whispering to loud bombast. Olivier Messiaen’s maniacal “Isle of Fire” was followed by Kurtág’s delicate homage to the French composer. Formenti is a bipolar pianist in the best sense. The dynamic contrasts he produced in quick succession were enormous.
Agree with him or not, Formenti’s pianistic skill is masterly. Drastically switching between contrasting works is a tiring endeavor, but Formenti brought an infinite pool of stamina. His tone was clear in both high and lows of register and dynamic. The end of the second half was just as emotionally concentrated as the opening of the first.
“Kurtág’s Ghosts” was more of an endurance test for the audience than it was for the performer. Nevertheless, Marino Formenti has a prophetic vision for the future of the piano recital, and he produced an unforgettable experience of technical prowess, emotional contrast and a new way of listening to classical music, old and new.
Italian-born, Marino Formenti is revered throughout the musical world both for his unusual recital programs and for the virtuosity with which he delivers them. He has performed throughout the world across four continents. He has appeared as soloist with some of the world’s great orchestras, including the Los Angeles, Cleveland, Munich and the French Radio Orchestras. Formenti is also active as a conductor, recording artist and collaborator with the world’s most esteemed composers. “Kurtág’s Ghosts” is available on compact disc through the Kairos label.
