Margherita Torretta discovers Galuppi’s keyboard works
Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano.
Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.
Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.
You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:
“Portraitures and caricatures: Conductors, Pianist, Composers”
here.
The young ex-dancer from Italy first burst upon the piano scene three years ago with 20 of her hand-picked Scarlatti sonatas. Now comes her second CD (Academy Classical Music) even more original and powerful, performing six of Baldassare Galuppi’s 18th century sonatas.
Margherita Torretta‘s early training as a dancer gives her playing a swaying, graceful air while she maintains Alberti bass for control of the rhythm, momentum and especially continuity. Her ornamentation is boosted with some of her own improvisations, producing a fresher feel. It’s a magic combination.
Her main teacher, William Grant Naboré, founder of the International Piano Academy, Lake Como, believes in her long-term development. “Artists are born, not made,” he told me recently. “Margherita is a born an artist.”
Here she plays the Galuppi B-flat majot sonata.
Galuppi’s keyboard works, originally composed for harpsichord, bring out Torretta’s dancing sense and natural sparkle, articulation, perfect trills and her subtle rubato.
In his works of maturity Galuppi adopts the classical style, new for its day. Margherita subtitled her CD “The Colours of Venice”.
As she writes in her program notes, his stature as a musical genius was confirmed during his time in Venice, a European capital that “enjoyed an exceptional cultural richness …”
Galuppi was a transitional figure in 18th centure music. Among the trailblazers was his friend C.P.E. Bach. Indeed, echoes of Mozart peek through his classical manner in these sonatas. In the Baroque, the complexity and the polyphonie of the master, Johann Sebastian Bach, dominates. Then the Classical composers moved away from this intricate style towards a clear melodic line.
Galuppi made his reputation in opera throughout Europe and has been largely neglected in the crowded world of the today’s piano repertoire. Now there are signs of a revival. The first major pianist of modern times to embrace his keyboard music was the late Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli who played the sonata in C major in a 1962 recital. His delicate interpretation was a sensation and is still coinsidered by many as definitive. Another Italian youg pianist emerged recently, and Margherita confidently carries on with her own interpretation.
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