For the 11th consecutive year Italian pianist Michelangelo Carbonara gave a recital in Gozo at the Kempinski San Lawrenz in aid of a worthy charity – the Friends of the Sick and the Elderly in Gozo.
In the past few years, more often than not after the first half of the concert featuring himself as soloist, Carbonara has also performed in duo with his equally brilliant South Korean wife, cellist Kyung Mi Li.
The solo part of the evening started off with Beethoven’s popular Waldstein Sonata in C Major, Op. 53. This sailed well from its tempestuous opening Allegro con brio, to the serene Adagio molto and on to the noble Rondo: allegretto grazioso. It started exactly like that and gathered a certain momentum and sweep right to a glorious conclusion. I found this interpretation a lovely one and equally involving.
Kyung Mi Li gave an outstandingly brilliant and virtuoso performance in a solo cello piece by Popper
The next two pieces were by Liszt: an arrangement of the famous Serenade (Ständchen) from Schwanengesang and the equally perennially popular Liebestraum in 3 in A flat Major. These were moments of romantic magic which continued into Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 in B flat Minor Op. 31. However, as we say, ‘the Devil’s tail got in the way’, and most unusually, well into the work, there was a memory lapse after which deeper and worse trouble was somehow averted by the unfazed pianist.
Well, one swallow does not a summer make, and in the second half of the recital, the piano part, which is of considerable prominence in the Allegro moderato from Frank Bridge’s Cello Sonata H. 125 was well handled. The Vivace ma non troppo (1st movement) in an arrangement for cello of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major Op. 78 was also given its due. The main attraction here was the cellist, who performed with great warmth and richness of tone. It made one sorry that only these movements were performed.
Kyung Mi Li gave an outstandingly brilliant and virtuoso performance in a solo cello piece by the Czech virtuoso cellist and composer David Popper. This was the latter’s showpiece par excellence, a lively Tarantella which had a few tender moments too; it tested the cello almost to extreme limits and had a littler Hungarian dose with references to a theme heard in one of Liszt’s Rhapsodies.
A deafening roar of applause greeted the cellist, who later proceeded to launch into an encore with Carbonara a final relaxing touch with a ragtime piece.