Margherita Santi impresses at the “Sternstuden am Bösendorfer” in the Rohrmeisterei
At the end: an ovation. The 28-year-old pianist Margherita Santi opened on Sunday
the season of Rohrmeisterei Schwerte.
The performance of the Italian pianist Margherita Santi (28) was impressive – with depth and creativity in the musical creative will.
The 28-year-old opened this year’s season of the Schwerter Konzertgesellschaft with the first “Sternstuden am Bösendorfer” ” in the well-attended Rohrmeisterei.
Very structured, deliberately setting every tone, the native of Verona interpreted compositions of the classical and Romantic periods.
Russian influences
She began Mozart’s Fantasy in D minor with a slow introduction. With the well-known melody of the Adagio, she focused on unexpected breaks and hard, accentuated “accentos” of the Russian school, which she had met at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
Bouncing runs then led to the final movement, in which Santi conjured up a gnomishly grotesque atmosphere, characterized by staccato and harsh interjections.
She designed Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” sluggishly, delaying – underlining the work with a very own musical language.
At the same time, she sank into her interpretation with visible pain of the soul, celebrated slowness, not without tension – restrained in the dynamics.
Bouncing, teasing children’s play, plus the gravitational steps of a companion, shaped the middle sentence – this looks like the mirror of the young mother’s own sensations with a just three-year-old child.
Full of energy, she finally threw herself into the presto, with heavy closing chords.
A bipolar chopin
She also approached Chopin’s F minor fantasy in her own way. Draping the notes of the march movement one by one, she worked out the dark, melancholic side of the composer. Soon her game picked up speed, broke out into impetuous fluency.
The transition into light sounds, pleasurable playing, reminded of mood swings of a bipolar kind. Reduced to excessive staccato, the love of slowness, the young woman surprised her audience here too with eruptions, linking high fluency with pronounced phrasing and rest points.
She also developed her own ideas for Schumann’s “Carnevale di Vienna”, combining sweet melodies with a hard attack à la russe at the cheerful start. Between harsh play, swaying passages, moderate interlude, lively and energetic runs developed. Nimbly, with frequently crossing hands, she worked her way to the dramatic conclusion. Then great applause. With Schubert’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade”, her first encore sounded dreamy, indulgent, characterized by emphatically worked phrases. She followed an etude by Rachmaninoff with a lively sparkling, subliminally grotesque march. An enthusiastic audience thanked her with a standing ovation.
Margherita Santi 