Francesco Piemontesi – Press

“He brings a particularly exquisite hushed beauty to the slow movements.”

“Piemontesi sparkles brilliantly in the faster movements, without ever losing the smooth edge to his playing…”

“These are beautifully glimmering, dream-like accounts…”

“It’s hard not to give an exciting performance of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto No. 5. So long as you’re equal to the score, the music all but guarantees a certain dynamic experience. Piemontesi went a few steps further, however. He played with grace, delicacy, and wonderful awareness of his musical partners… The sheer variety of pianistic touch was a joy to behold. Legato and pianissimo weren’t just smooth and soft here. In Piemontesi’s hands, they were silken and preciously quiet.”

“Manze and the orchestra lit a fire under the piece. Piemontesi, on the other hand, took a calm and cerebral approach. Observing him play evoked the same feeling of awe I experience when watching principal ballet dancers in action. It was evident that Piemontesi pays exacting attention to form and technique, the effort exerted by each muscle, and each passage’s relationship to its surrounding musical landscape. Still, it sounded absolutely effortless. Even in the sparkiest moments, Piemontesi landed on the notes with a light bounce.”

“Thursday’s reading of the solo part was crystalline in tone, though never lacking in warmth or fullness of tone. Rather, it was finely balanced: thoughtfully shaped in the first movement, graceful in the slow central one, overflowing with bumptious character in the finale”…

“…his Mozart Piano Concerto No. 19 was simply spellbinding: fresh and direct in a supple opening movement; exquisitely blended and balanced in its singing slow movement.”

“Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto also had beautifully shaded orchestral tone, matched with elegant playing and lightness of touch from Francesco Piemontesi.”

“It was obvious that the audience wanted an encore from him.”

“Mr. Piemontesi drew out the reflective undercurrents even while playing with grace and élan.”

“He brought generous warmth and spaciousness to the opening movement, and lovely poise to the slow Larghetto; his sound was gloriously transparent throughout.”

“…as ferociously loud as many of Piemontesi’s left-hand chords are, they are never just noise: you can still hear the notes in them, allowing the changes of harmony to come across. This is extremely invigorating to listen to; I can’t think of many other recordings that approach this level of turbulent frenzy.”

“…the young virtuoso succeeds in creating the romantic nuances with elegance and freshness… The contrasts of the ‘Vallèe d’Obermann’ break dramatically and clearly enough, and the ‘Cloches de Genève’ proves Piemontesi powerful and different.”

“Francesco Piemontesi was in magical form in Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto, his delicately trilling digits uncannily evoking the insect nightlife of the Great Hungarian Plain that was, for Bartók, the nearest thing to evidence of a God.”

“Piemontesi numbers Alfred Brendel among his teachers, and his style is intense and rich enough in micro-detail to make even Brendel sound easy-going.”

“…Piemontesi’s polished playing is alert with exactly the kind of spontaneity essential to great Mozart performance.”

“The entrance of the soloist, nostalgic and unconcerned in its first passages, was evidence of the musicality and dynamic exquisiteness of Piemontesi, who extracted from the piano a sound so clean and transparent and filled the room of the Palace of the Opera without the slightest difficulty. But it was in the heroic central passages of the movement in which Piemontesi, leaning on incisive winds, gave an overwhelming lesson in virtuosity. This culminated in a thriving cadence at which Piemontesi denied any topic about intractable difficulty of this work.”

“…you can’t get much more persuasive playing than Mr. Piemontesi’s. His light touch, fleet-footed yet full, offered moments of grandeur (the mischievous first theme in the finale) and chamber music-like collaborations with the woodwinds throughout.”

“Another factor that lifted this concert well beyond the ordinary was the presence of young Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi. He gave a wonderfully winning performance of Mozart’s final piano concerto, faithful to the work’s dewdrop lucidity and gentle nostalgia, but irradiated with joie de vivre too, in the way he garlanded Mozart’s notes with stylish and witty flourishes of his own. The orchestra and Gražinytė-Tyla were alert to his every move.”

“The concert opened with an unaffected, alternately sparkling and passionately inward rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, featuring Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi in his L.A. Phil debut.

Piemontesi, 33, counts Alfred Brendel and Murray Perahia among his mentors. Although he shares Brendel’s insistence on musical integrity and attention to detail and Perahia’s Romantic spirit, Piemontesi showed an unpredictable temperament all his own, beginning the famous hushed opening bars in the first movement Allegro with a brief glissando. For a moment, it wasn’t clear which concerto he was about to play. Perhaps intended as an attention-getter, Piemontesi’s gambit reduced any possibility of a too self-consciously poetic entrance before the orchestra replied.

Using Beethoven’s dramatic cadenza, the pianist also displayed a fiery quality, playing in ways that felt both epic and intimate.”

“[Piemontesi] was hard-hitting and energetic, yet admirably witty, debonair and flamboyant…. Piemontesi is an exquisite Mozartean, elegant in style and fully aware of the emotional depths beneath the graceful surface.”

“With some young pianists, native brilliance and joy in sheer digital dexterity sometimes runs ahead of musical intelligence. That’s never the case with Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi. At the age of 29 he’s already a superbly self-possessed artist. He has technique to burn, but the striking moments in this recital – and there were plenty of them – owed nothing to the ‘wow’ factor.”