I loved hearing pianist Luciano Bellini. I spoke to several others and they were similarly pleased. We discussed technique and talent the other night over at dinner party. This concert was in the same ballpark. The word that came to me was "earthy". The music was memorised, the playing was touching and apt and the technique was worn lightly. I may have caught a few slips, ma non importa. I loved this music for its personality, its involvement and honest search for the core of the compositions. This is what makes art, of course, and society and culture. Not the technique, as impressive and exhilarating as that can be, but the exposed heart. The other aspect was the breadth of this concert. Luciano started with Scarlatti, moved through his own filmic music to lyricism from Verdi and some major dissonance from Berio and Berg and allegiance of Busoni and intellectual searching by Casella (Due ricercari sul nome B.A.C.H. - didn't JS himself do something similar with the B minor mass?) to some pleasing encores by Puccini and Chopin. All by memory; all somehow part of this man's presence in a way that I've seldom felt before. It helps to be close in a smallish venue, of course. Luciano Bellini's concert was beyond technique and just a great, great pleasure. He was introduced in that particularly formal Italian way as Maestro, but even in the English sense, I felt he was.
Luciano Bellini (piano) performed in the Larry Sitsky room at ANU.
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