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| The Awards Were Won; Now for a Debut |
It was perhaps only natural that Alberto Nosè, a fine young Italian pianist and a gentleman of Verona, was able to illuminate so vividly Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” during his Carnegie recital debut at Zankel Hall on Thursday.
Mr. Nosè’s recital was presented by the Concert Artists Guild and the Santander International Piano Competition, which he won in 2005. Competition winners sometimes provoke heated debate, but it’s easy to see why the 26-year-old Mr. Nosè, whose performance on Thursday combined a hefty technique with poised introspection, clinched first prize. A graduate of the conservatory of Verona and the International Piano Academy of Imola, Mr. Nosè has also won top prizes at the Busoni, Chopin, Vendôme and World Piano international competitions.
Prokofiev based “Romeo and Juliet,” a piano suite, on his star-crossed ballet, which earned sneers from the Bolshoi after he completed it in 1936. A successful performance needs the steely muscularity essential to Prokofiev’s piano music and the charm and whimsy essential to a love story. Mr. Nosè (who opened the second half of his program with the work) provided both in ample measure, as well as a frisson of danger in “The Montagues and Capulets,” whisper-soft lyricism in “Father Lorenzo” and passionate yearning in “Romeo Bids Farewell to Juliet.”
Mr. Nosè began his recital with a gracefully limpid reading of Schumann’s “Arabesque.”
Next came that composer’s Symphonic Études (Op. 13.) It’s a tough work to keep from wandering off track, especially when the five posthumous variations are included (as they were here), but Mr. Nosè managed to sustain interest with clearly voiced lines and both power and poetry when called for.
The program concluded with the piano version of Ravel’s orchestral piece “La Valse.” Before World War I, Ravel intended to compose a tribute to Johann Strauss Jr. But he wrote it in a shattered world in 1919. Instead of paying homage to opulent Viennese salons, Ravel’s carnival fun house waltz evokes skeletons in ball gowns, whirling to abruptly modulating layers of cynicism. Mr. Nosè’s rendition was technically impressive and brilliantly chilling. |
| Vivien Schweitzer The New York Times (October 7, 2006) |
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