Malipiero’s six piano concertos span a good bit of his long life (he died in 1973, aged 91) and they are all of a piece. With timings of around 15 minutes, they are too short to have much of a chance of being performed live, and they’re too quirky to make it into lighter “pops” concerts. But they have very real charms, not least of which is that they sound like no one else. The keyboard writing is elegant, never heavy, and beautifully integrated into the music’s ongoing flow. Malipiero’s scoring also is generally restrained and translucent, with hints of Respighi’s modal “Gregorianism” in the earlier works, and a more knotty but still obviously tuneful chromaticism from the Fourth Concerto on.
Formally Malipiero doesn’t seem at all constrained by the German tradition. Indeed, both in terms of length and style, with their toccata-like textures in the quick outer movements and aria-like central lentos, these are more concertos in the Baroque sense, save that they don’t sound “neo” anything. In short, say what you will about their viability on the concert stage, these works have real personality and style, and it’s wonderful to have them conveniently packaged together.
Pianist Sandro Ivo Bartoli offers nicely pointed, fluid accounts of these undemanding works, and the booklet photo of him doing his Mona Lisa impression is (unintentionally?) amusing. Michele Carulli and the orchestra accompany well, and the SACD multichannel recording offers natural balances and plenty of detail. There’s something quietly compelling here. I’ve already played this set several times, and will surely return to it with pleasure in the near future. Give it a shot. [10/15/2007]
