Recital
Gennaro (violin) and Raffaella (cello) Cardaropoli
Italian Cultural Institute

A pair of highly accomplished young siblings gave a marvellous recital at the splendid main salon of the Italian Cultural Institute.

The evening was one of the events marking the 40th anniversary of the opening of the insitute by the late Aldo Moro in 1974 in the presence of the late and equally much lamented first director, Carlo Alberto Dorigo.

The evening was introduced by the current director, Salvatore Schirmo, whose opening address was followed by a brief one delivered by Giovanni Umberto De Vito, Italian Ambassador to Malta.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to describe this recital as an astonishing one.

‘Young’ is a term which could span over a relatively considerable time span. The striking thing about the Cardaropolis is that Gennaro is only 16 and Raffaella a mere 14, yet they performed with a remarkable degree of highly accomplished musical maturity.

The programme they chose, rather than consisting of three or four works, was made up of shorter pieces, either of mainly arranged duo movements from longer works or highly compact solo pieces for either instrument. Perhaps this was meant to provide as wide a gamut of technique and interpretation as possible and it worked well.

Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro (second from left) visiting St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

Raffaella’s role was, in the main, a highly supportive and balanced accompanying one.

It was so in the opening Aria from J.S. Bach’s orchestral suite in D, BWV 1008 which one normally hears it as Air on a G string in August Wilhelmj’s arrangement. The cellist then performed in fine style the Prelude from Bach’s Solo cello Suite No. 2 in D minor BWV 1008.

My only gripe for the evening was that the next piece, a duo arrangement of Luigi Boccherini’s famous Minuet, was taken much too fast. The tempo set by the violinist was definitely not suitable.

Who knows, maybe Gennaro was already in a Paganinian mindset because he was utterly dazzling, fast yet always very articulate when he performed the composer’s Capricci, Op. 1, Nos 1 and 24.

Repeated applause brought the duo back to perform an encore, which was an arrangement of Ennio Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe from the film The Mission

The last solo violin piece he performed was the equally impeccable Introduction, Theme and Variations on Nel cor più non mi sento, which is taken from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera L’amore contrastato.

By then, Raffaella had performed two solo cello pieces. Both composed by composers whose works one hears all too rarely, but staple fare for cellists. These were Jean-Louis Duport’s Etude No. 7 from a set of 21 studies and Alfredo Piatti’s even more virtuoso-like Capriccio Op. 25, No. 1. This built up with the urgency akin to that of a fast locomotive but it was not a runaway trip because the cellist performed with a degree of controlled flexibility.

The other duo pieces performed were the Maestoso from Karl Stamitz’s Grand Duo Op. 19, Henryk Wieniawski’s exciting Salterello and ended with the highly climactic Theme and Variations from the George Friderick Handel/ Johan Halvorsen Passacaglia.

Repeated applause brought the duo back to perform an encore, which was an arrangement of Ennio Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe from the film The Mission.