Michelangelo CarbonaraMichelangelo Carbonara

Yet again the Kempinski San Lawrenz in Gozo recently was the venue of a recital which featured renowned Italian pianist Michelangelo Carbonara and leading cellist Simon Abdilla Joslin. As usual there was a very good turnout for the event which was organised by Sonja Sinclair Stevenson and a number of volunteers. The recital was in aid of two charities, namely The Friends of the Sick and the Elderly in Gozo and the Gozo-based Happy Moments in Kenya.

The first half of the programme was a solo piano recital in which Carbonara performed three works by J.S. Bach but as arranged for piano by Ferruccio Busoni. The first two were cantata chorale preludes, the first being the very popular Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 140) highlighting the evocation of the call from the divine voice.

Equally evocative was Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christus.

Much longer and from a different source was the splendid and monumental Chaconne from the Partita N.2 in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004. Surely this is one of the most challenging works in all Western music which takes a lot of spiritual and emotional involvement, stamina and technical prowess in order to project its greatness and bring home with satisfaction.

Those who have followed Carbonara through the years know what mettle he is made of and he proved worthy of the task. These pieces, two originally written for chorus and light orchestral accompaniment and the third for solo violin, retained the essence of their message as dressed up within a formidable piano structure provided by Busoni, a great pianist and passionate admirer of J.S. Bach.

The duo’s solid partnership continued working well in the two encores

With great smooth, easy and highly contrasting idiomatic transition, Carbonara concluded the first half with a Romantic glimpse at the Viennese Biedermeier carnival as depicted in Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. This was charmingly projected within a very well structured melodious work.

Romantic all the way it was when in the second half Abdilla Joslin joined forces with Carbonara in a balanced and lovely Romance for cello and piano by Mili Balakirev. Here the lovely warm tone of the cello supported by the piano rendered justice to this comparatively and unjustly little known work full of charm and appeal.

The next piece, Liszt’s Liebestraum N.3, is no stranger as a salon piece, sometimes also bordering on the hackneyed. It was, therefore, very refreshing to hear it in a version for cello and piano with both instruments sharing the material back and forth.

The duo continued in the same vein, giving their best in the final piece: this time in more original Romantic music by Schumann in the Fantasiestücke Op. 73. Schumann lets go here so the duo were very mindful of the frequent changes of mood and imagination harmoniously projected with great warmth and intensity.

The duo’s solid partnership continued working well in the two encores rendered. First came a lively Tarantella by Henry Squire followed by Chiquitín de Bachín by Astor Piazzolla.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.