Concert Review, "Cremona the city of Dreams--A Global network where dreams becomes reality," Sept. 26, 2022
by Christopher Axworthy, Co-Artistic Director of the Keyboard Charitable Trust, UK
"Back now to the Fazioli Piano Festival for one of the most extraordinary recitals that I have heard for a long time. A true revelation of a pianist / singer who listens to herself with enviable musicality and artistry.
There was a crystalline clarity from the very first notes of the Mozart Sonata in C K.279. A natural flowing tempo and a ravishing sound in the Andante and a scintillating final Allegro where the music spoke with such character and style. Then the surprise as she was to sing two of the Frauenliebe und Leben by Schumann accompanying herself on the piano. What a ravishing voice and how the piano and voice became one long beautiful line. What power in her voice too – a miracle of how she could use her diaphragm seated as she was at the piano. The true revelation was to come with one of the most sensitive and beautiful accounts of Chopin’s 24 Preludes that I have ever heard. She played only the last 12 and I long to hear her play the complete set. The fluidity of the sound and the kaleidoscopic colours were worthy of the Matthay school that was based on the infinite gradations of tone in every single note. At the end I had to go up to her and exclaim how much she obviously loved the piano. The 21st Prelude I had never heard with such magical sounds – she was surprised because she said that was her favourite prelude. The 20th too, how she had built up the sound from the bass with the majestic C minor chords disappearing layer by layer into the infinite. The three final ‘D’ s played not like the usual sledgehammer but like the reverberation of the single note just allowed to vibrate without being bashed out ever more triumphantly.
What intelligence too as she sang Verdi’s ‘Perduta ho la pace’ from his six Romances that is the same setting of Goethe’s Faust as in Gretchen am Spinnrade. She too played the Liszt transcription of Gretchen like Aleksandra Swigut except she sang the actual song with the Liszt accompaniment. What a marvel it was! An encore of the famous aria from La Boheme brought the house down with a voice of such ravishing beauty and power, looking us in the eye as she accompanied herself on the piano. I am lost for words to describe what marvels we had witnessed.”