Nachtmuziek

17'

Amsterdam Sinfonietta

Amsterdam Sinfonietta

 

18 april 2019, TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht

NRC: An inspired interplay with the ensemble.

 

Amsterdam Sinfonietta tours with young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana. She plays wonderfully, from Bach to Wantenaar. Italian pianist Beatrice Rana impressed two years ago with her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, for which she received an Edison Classical award in the category 'The Discovery'. Now Rana is touring the Netherlands and Italy with Amsterdam Sinfonietta to play two of Bach's keyboard concertos. In the Muziekgebouw on Saturday evening, she performed the most famous, BWV 1052. The tempo was high. She wanted nothing to do with an abstracted pseudo harpsichord doucher à la Gould: Rana played plenty of piano, with a choice of colours and atmospheres. The solo note cascades sounded a tad murky, but her intelligent playing, more focused on expression and eloquence than classical proportions, impressed, as did the inspired ensemble playing. When Rana plays two Bach concerts next week, it will be at the expense of one of the most beautiful pieces on the programme: Bartók's short piano solo Night Music, from the series Szabadban, Sz. 81, will then be dropped. Especially in contrast to Bach, this imaginative evocation of a Hungarian summer night formed a breathtaking listening experience. Rana glowingly strung the fragments together. Mathilde Wantenaar, who only last week impressed with a choral work in the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, had adapted her Octet into Night Music for string orchestra. With a controlled surge, the work evoked a fine menacing-dreamy atmosphere reminiscent of Debussy and Bartók. The Divertimento for strings by Bartók himself was the worthy final touch. From the very first bars, with subtle delays, a sophisticated dynamic profile and delightful details, the group left almost all performances by orchestras with conductors behind.

 

Joep Stapel, NRC, 2 April 2019.

 

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DE VOLKSKRANT: Pianist Beatrice Rana's delicate playing, combined with sounds of nature, forces a concentration that silences.

 

Pianist by night, globe trotter by day. Full-time dreamer. That's how Beatrice Rana (26) defines herself on Twitter. Since her Dutch debut over a year ago, a lot has happened to the keyboard prodigy from Lecce, southern Italy. She has played at Carnegie Hall, at Teatro Colón, and, most impressively for her, at Teatro alla Scala in Milan. From reviews of the globetrotter's playing, by now you can fold a long, festive garland. At the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, you can see her on her back. The lid of the grand piano has been removed. In a semi-circle around her stand the strings of Amsterdam Sinfonietta, ready to return to the composer with whom her globetrotting began: Johann Sebastian Bach. As firm as her vision of the form of his Concert BWV 1052 is, she fills it in smoothly - as if thinking in an endless array of possibilities from which she chooses on the spot. Lovely, how you can hear motifs shuttling back and forth between piano and orchestra. Nice, too, how small shadows of sound in the orchestra are echoed by the piano, but afterwards it is mainly the all-encompassing arc of thought that stays with you. Night music, the theme of the evening, can be heard in the slow movement of the same name from Bartók's piano cycle Out of doors. You can hear leaves rustling in a nocturnal forest, a breaking branch, creatures scurrying away startled. Rana's delicate play with those unpredictable sounds of nature enforces a concentration that silences. The other Night Music on the programme, Mathilde Wantenaar's, also makes one quiet. Wantenaar, the same age as Beatrice Rana, adapted her award-winning 2017 Octet into a version for string ensemble, with high strings floating in the air like dust particles for as long as possible, but eventually being sucked down to earth. Even more strongly than in the Octet, you then feel the cellos and the warm pizzicato of the double basses working together to initiate a dance. Too bad, that magical atmosphere is not continued after the interval. Battalia, the narration of a battle by Baroque composer Heinrich Biber, overflows with excellently executed special effects - chattering bass strings, stomping musicians' feet - but mostly works as a sobering awakening from Wantenaar and Rana's dreamy nights. Even Bartók's brilliant Divertimento for strings cannot bring back the charged concentration of the beginning of the evening.

 

Biëlla Luttmer, De Volkskrant, 1 April 2019.