Brahms & Nguci: A Musical Perspective | The Music Journal

Among the moments that made this concert so special is Marie-Ange Nguci’s entrance: after the dramatic orchestral incipit of the concert op. 15 by Brahms, the young but already very successful French-Albanian pianist made us turn the page with a dreamy expressiveness marked by the most intense romantic feeling, both lunar and passionate, and then continued throughout the concert, skilfully alternating the tragic thrusts of the first movement, the intimacy of the adagio, the boldness of the finale, in an interpretation rich in colour, fascinating, undoubtedly measured to perfection and which nevertheless is capable to convey a naturalness that always manages to seem spontaneous and uplifting, and this seems to us to be her most original trait, the one that makes her a protagonist of today’s piano scene. We imagine that if there is an author that everyone listens to in a different way, it is Brahms, for the wealth of different ideas he offers, and even more so in this concert which is still full, in the first movement, of an indomitable youthful ardor for the exuberant richness of invention, despite the author’s uncertainties in the troubled compositional story, and the novelty of such an important orchestra. What struck us in particular in this interpretation by Nguci, even more than the always beautiful sounds and colors, was the invention of movements that were never dramatic, but always supple and subtly oscillating around the pivot of the general movement, and even more, in this suppleness, the ability to outline the relationship between the two hands, right and left, not in the key of singing-accompaniment but as a double song, which proceeded without rigidity, indeed with a sense of satisfying freedom. This time too, as in previous Italian appearances reported by the “Giornale della Musica”, this pianist exerted a profound enchantment on the audience, who at the end covered her with applause, after which she proposed one of her favorite non-programmes, namely a reworked extract from the Ravelian concert for the left hand. We found an Orchestra della Toscana with very renewed ranks in the ranks and in the first parts, however in good shape, as was particularly highlighted in the second part of the program, with a beautiful and clear performance of Symphony no. 5 by Mendelssohn, “The Reformation”. And here the protagonist was another young musician, the conductor Hossein Pishkar, who also gave us the same impression of spontaneity of approach, with a clear, balanced but also very fresh and communicative reading of the Mendelssohnian Fifth, which seems to have found a very good response from the orchestra, among which we can mention at least Viola Brambilla, the first flute, who is responsible for the enunciation of the Lutheran chorale A strong castle which constitutes the theme of the finale.