Sandro Ivo Bartoli
Encyclopedia
Sandro Ivo Bartoli was born in Pisa
in 1970. Having begun his musical studies at the age of twelve, at fifteen he gave his first public recital. He studied at the Boccherini Musical Institute in Lucca
and at the Florence State Conservatory with Giancarlo Cardini, receiving his Professorship in 1991. Subsequently, he moved to London
to study at the Royal Academy of Music
(where he won numerous prizes and scholarships), and collaborated privately with the late Ukrainian pianist Shura Cherkassky
.
(Bedford, 1991), Malipiero
(London, 1994) and Casella
(1995), was followed by the first modern performance in the United States of Ottorino Respighi’s Toccata for piano and orchestra, with the Johnson City Symphony under Lewis Dalvit; the concert was broadcast live by PBS and subsequently included in the station’s Great Performances
series. As a result, Bartoli signed his first recording contract, with ASV, for an album dedicated to the piano works of Malipiero, to which followed one year later another recording with music by Casella (performed by "a fantastic pianist", wrote Der Spiegel Kultur). His international career developed rapidly: in 1997 he appeared in Sweden, where Svenska Dagbladet
heralded him as "an outwordly virtuoso”; Norway followed, with concerts at the Bergen festival and the Grieg Museum. Meanwhile, he began his collaboration with Italian author Antonio Tabucchi
, performing Italian music at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence to rapturous success. In 2000 he appeared in Germany, where his interpretation of Beethoven
’s Emperor Concerto
received significant acclaim ("such a performance of the Emperor concerto had not been heard for more than a decade" wrote the Thüringer Allgemeine), then in the UK, where his rendition of Rachmaninoff
’s Paganini Rhapsody
with The Hallé
under Nicolae Moldoveanu received a standing ovation.
In 2002 Sandro Ivo Bartoli produced the scene music for Fernando Pessoa’s Book of disquiet, performed at the Festival d'Avignon
in the adaptation of Antonio Tabucchi, and appeared in the triple capacity of pianist, arranger and composer. The same year, he founded in London Opera Etcetera, a series of concerts devoted to the non-vocal music of opera composers, and the Lyric Club Renato Bruson of Turin
awarded him the Gina Rosso Prize for his work in the arts. More significant engagements followed: Shostakovich’s First Concerto in Stockholm, Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto in London, Beethoven’s Third Concerto in Bedford, and a cycle of live concerts for the Spanish National Radio where he performed various works by Malipiero, Casella, Respighi, Pizzetti
, the new Sonata of Luciano Berio and the Fantasia contrappuntistica of Ferruccio Busoni. In 2005 Sandro Ivo Bartoli took part in a grand benefit concert at Munich’s Philharmonie with Martha Argerich and Rodion Shchedrin, and completed the world premiere recording of Malipiero’s piano concertos with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Saarbruecken under Michele Carulli for CPO. The important event was the subject for a documentary film by French director Miroslav Sebestik. The double CD was received with enthusiasm by the international press in France, United States, Germany, the Uk and Austria. More recently, Bartoli has been involved in a project to bring back to public attention the historic opera houses of Italy. His 2008 tour In Tuscany with Chopin met with unanimous praise from public and critic alike, and earned him a public commendation from the Tuscan Minister of Culture. In 2010 he has performed Ottorino Respighi’s Concerto in the myxolydian mode with the Orchestra of the Landesbühnen Sachsen in Dresden to rave reviews, Beethoven’s Fourth Piano concerto with the Teschenphilharmonie in Munich and Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto in Grosseto. Sandro Ivo Bartoli has recorded Ottorino Respighi’s Concerto in modo misolidio and Toccata for piano and orchestra with the Landesbühnen Sachsen under Michele Carulli for the Dutch label Brilliant Classics. Future projects include the performance and recording of Pjot’r Il’ich Tchajkovskij’s complete piano music and two albums of Ferruccio Busoni piano works, as well as performances of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto, Liszt’ Malediction Concerto, and numerous recitals throughout Europe. His discography is available on ASV, NEOS, Timbre, Opera Etcetera, Fenice DM, CPO and Brilliant Classics.
Liszt-Busoni: Piano transcriptions (Paganini Etudes, Mephisto Waltz, Hungarian Rhapsody No.19, Fantasy and Fugue on Ád nos ad salutarem undam´. Brilliant Classics, 2011.
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
in 1970. Having begun his musical studies at the age of twelve, at fifteen he gave his first public recital. He studied at the Boccherini Musical Institute in Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
and at the Florence State Conservatory with Giancarlo Cardini, receiving his Professorship in 1991. Subsequently, he moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to study at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
(where he won numerous prizes and scholarships), and collaborated privately with the late Ukrainian pianist Shura Cherkassky
Shura Cherkassky
Shura Cherkassky was an American classical pianist known for his performances of the romantic repertoire. His playing was characterized by a virtuoso technique and singing piano tone...
.
Biography
Since the early Nineties, with Cherkassky’s support and encouragement, Bartoli revisited the Italian literature from the early Twentieth century, establishing a trend and rapidly becoming its leading interpreter. His rediscovery of the concertos of RespighiOttorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
(Bedford, 1991), Malipiero
Gian Francesco Malipiero
Gian Francesco Malipiero was an Italian composer, musicologist, music teacher and editor.-Early years:Born in Venice into an aristocratic family, the grandson of the opera composer Francesco Malipiero, Gian Francesco Malipiero was prevented by family troubles from pursuing his musical education in...
(London, 1994) and Casella
Alfredo Casella
Alfredo Casella was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.- Life and career :Casella was born in Turin; his family included many musicians; his grandfather, a friend of Paganini's, was first cello in the San Carlo Theatre in Lisbon and eventually was soloist in the Royal Chapel in Turin...
(1995), was followed by the first modern performance in the United States of Ottorino Respighi’s Toccata for piano and orchestra, with the Johnson City Symphony under Lewis Dalvit; the concert was broadcast live by PBS and subsequently included in the station’s Great Performances
Great Performances
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...
series. As a result, Bartoli signed his first recording contract, with ASV, for an album dedicated to the piano works of Malipiero, to which followed one year later another recording with music by Casella (performed by "a fantastic pianist", wrote Der Spiegel Kultur). His international career developed rapidly: in 1997 he appeared in Sweden, where Svenska Dagbladet
Svenska Dagbladet
Svenska Dagbladet is a daily newspaper in Sweden. The first issue appeared on 18 December 1884. Svenska Dagbladet is published in Stockholm and provides coverage of national and international news as well as local coverage of the Greater Stockholm region...
heralded him as "an outwordly virtuoso”; Norway followed, with concerts at the Bergen festival and the Grieg Museum. Meanwhile, he began his collaboration with Italian author Antonio Tabucchi
Antonio Tabucchi
Antonio Tabucchi is an Italian writer and academic who teaches Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena, Italy....
, performing Italian music at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence to rapturous success. In 2000 he appeared in Germany, where his interpretation of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
’s Emperor Concerto
Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil...
received significant acclaim ("such a performance of the Emperor concerto had not been heard for more than a decade" wrote the Thüringer Allgemeine), then in the UK, where his rendition of Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
’s Paganini Rhapsody
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Villa Senar, according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934...
with The Hallé
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
under Nicolae Moldoveanu received a standing ovation.
In 2002 Sandro Ivo Bartoli produced the scene music for Fernando Pessoa’s Book of disquiet, performed at the Festival d'Avignon
Festival d'Avignon
The Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
in the adaptation of Antonio Tabucchi, and appeared in the triple capacity of pianist, arranger and composer. The same year, he founded in London Opera Etcetera, a series of concerts devoted to the non-vocal music of opera composers, and the Lyric Club Renato Bruson of Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
awarded him the Gina Rosso Prize for his work in the arts. More significant engagements followed: Shostakovich’s First Concerto in Stockholm, Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto in London, Beethoven’s Third Concerto in Bedford, and a cycle of live concerts for the Spanish National Radio where he performed various works by Malipiero, Casella, Respighi, Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...
, the new Sonata of Luciano Berio and the Fantasia contrappuntistica of Ferruccio Busoni. In 2005 Sandro Ivo Bartoli took part in a grand benefit concert at Munich’s Philharmonie with Martha Argerich and Rodion Shchedrin, and completed the world premiere recording of Malipiero’s piano concertos with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Saarbruecken under Michele Carulli for CPO. The important event was the subject for a documentary film by French director Miroslav Sebestik. The double CD was received with enthusiasm by the international press in France, United States, Germany, the Uk and Austria. More recently, Bartoli has been involved in a project to bring back to public attention the historic opera houses of Italy. His 2008 tour In Tuscany with Chopin met with unanimous praise from public and critic alike, and earned him a public commendation from the Tuscan Minister of Culture. In 2010 he has performed Ottorino Respighi’s Concerto in the myxolydian mode with the Orchestra of the Landesbühnen Sachsen in Dresden to rave reviews, Beethoven’s Fourth Piano concerto with the Teschenphilharmonie in Munich and Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto in Grosseto. Sandro Ivo Bartoli has recorded Ottorino Respighi’s Concerto in modo misolidio and Toccata for piano and orchestra with the Landesbühnen Sachsen under Michele Carulli for the Dutch label Brilliant Classics. Future projects include the performance and recording of Pjot’r Il’ich Tchajkovskij’s complete piano music and two albums of Ferruccio Busoni piano works, as well as performances of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto, Liszt’ Malediction Concerto, and numerous recitals throughout Europe. His discography is available on ASV, NEOS, Timbre, Opera Etcetera, Fenice DM, CPO and Brilliant Classics.
Discography
Respighi: Concerto in modo misolido, Toccata. State Orchestra of Saxony, Michele Carulli. Brilliant Classics, 2011.Liszt-Busoni: Piano transcriptions (Paganini Etudes, Mephisto Waltz, Hungarian Rhapsody No.19, Fantasy and Fugue on Ád nos ad salutarem undam´. Brilliant Classics, 2011.
- Chopin Brillante - Fenice DM, 2008
- Malipiero: Piano Concertos, Variazioni Senza Tema. Radio Orchestra of Saarbruecken, M. Carulli. CPO, 2007.
- Fugitives - Timbre Records, Feb 21, 2005
- Encores - Opera Etcetera, 2004
- Saint-Saens: Carnival of the animals - NEOS, 2003
- Casella: Piano Music - ASV, Mar 17, 1998
- Malipiero: Piano Music - ASV, Sept. 1995
External links
- Information in other languages
- Biography in Italian