Beethoven: Piano Music – Giuseppe Rossi

Beethoven was never really in need of a presentation. His music, in particular his symphonic and piano works, is so unconditionally respected by all performers of every instrument, that all further words seem exceedingly superfluous. However, it is always a wonder when a young performer accepts the challenge of his music, similar to a mountain climber who accepts the challenge of an impervious mountain. With this debut album, Giuseppe Rossi does precisely this, recording one of the Sonatas which are unanimously acknowledged to be among the most complex and demanding, i.e. the so-called Hammerklavier. It is a true monument of composition, similar to the last of Beethoven’s Symphonies; it can make even the most skilled pianists nervous. However, Rossi is not frightened and faces it with freshness and spirit. His performance is the result of an accomplished artist, who is able to master all of the innumerable expressive nuances required by the score. His project is completed by another giant work among those by the Bonn composer, the Grosse Fuge excerpted from one of his string quartets. In its four-hand piano transcription it is one of the most visionary and transcendental works by the composer. It is a gaze into a future yet to come, and a riddle for every composer and musicologist who analyzed it. Together with Elisa Viscarelli, also in this case Rossi faces

and solves the infinite contrapuntal difficulties of the score, with a self-assured and personal style, and by putting into relief all the facets of the original score: this album represents the debut of two great interpreters of Beethoven.