Thalberg was one of a select group that included Liszt who
travelled widely, thrilling fashionable audiences with their pianistic
brilliance. Virtuoso pianists frequently brought their own arrangements
or free adaptations of popular operas and instrumental works to the salons
and concert halls of nineteenth-century Europe and America in performances
that were primarily a means of demonstrating the dazzling keyboard technique
of the soloist. The ‘grand fantasia’ allowed the player to embellish and
improvise in order to demonstrate his extraordinary powers and, while
the results may bear only a passing resemblance to the original, they
remain interesting examples of 19th century bravura.
Nowadays we tend to be more critical about such blatant
showing off, and it must also be admitted that, shorn of their context,
the Bellini tunes sound somewhat upstaged. Nevertheless, this performance
demonstrates not only the pianist’s impressive disdain for technical
difficulties, but also a sensitive understanding of what is required
in addition to keyboard dexterity. That said, it cannot be denied that
a CD – even one so well made as this one – can hardly
reproduce the impact that these works probably had in their day.
Played end-to-end (as, one may be sure, was never intended)
the four Fantasias and Grand Caprice sound rather long-winded: trite
little tunes interspersed with long, extremely difficult études.
No doubt pianists will be impressed (as they should be) by the extraordinary
stamina and aplomb with which Nicolosi polishes off these intimidating
monsters. No doubt, also, Thalberg, like Liszt, was a worthy representative
of a historically important genre – the Great Big Very Difficult Piano
Piece; but honestly, apart from my favourite La Sonnambula, this
is not a disc I will often be playing in its entirety.
Roy Brewer
Francesco Nicolosi (Piano)