 Surnommé Il Buranello d’après son lieu de naissance dans la lagune de Venise, Galuppi (1706-1785) est de la même génération que Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) qu’il rencontra d’ailleurs à Berlin en 1740 : soleil et gaieté pour l’un, clair-obscur et tourments pour l’autre. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli comme Vladimir Horowitz mettaient parfois à leur programme une ou plusieurs de ses 130 Sonates pour le clavier bien négligées depuis le XVIIIe siècle. Depuis, Peter Seivewright pour Divine Arts, Matteo Napoli pour Naxos, Andrea Bacchetti pour RCA Victor, ont proposé soit des débuts d’intégrale pour les deux premiers, soit un choix d’œuvres rares pour le dernier. Aujourd’hui, c’est une radieuse pianiste italienne de 26 ans, élève d’Enrico Pace, qui propose six de ces Sonates en trois mouvements, très représentatives du délicat passage du baroque au classicisme, et du clavecin au pianoforte de Cristofori en 1709. Ce qui explique que certains interprètes choisissent encore le clavecin pour les jouer et accentuer leur aspect conservateur. Rien de tel avec Fernanda Damiano qui fait brillammment sonner son piano avec fougue lorsqu’il le faut (Presto Allegro vivacissimo de la Sonate n° 7 en sol mineur) et délicatesse lorsqu’il en est besoin (Grazioso de la Sonate n° 9 en mi majeur). Sensibilité, élégance, virtuosité sont ici les ingrédients d’un très remarquable enregistrement, qui, par sa modernité, appelle sans doute des prolongements. (Jacques-Philippe Saint-Gerand) A debut album from a gifted young pianist, who has stylishly reimagined the world of the Venetian Baroque on a modern piano. At a time when only Bach and Scarlatti were Baroque-era composers in the repertoire of pianists rather than harpsichordists, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli pressed the cause of Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785) with performances and recordings of sonatas. Galuppi’s style was defined during his lifetime as ‘gay, lively and brilliant’, and this description certainly capture the style of the keyboard sonatas which he wrote throughout his career. Born on the island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon, Galuppi trained with Antonio Lotti (then organist of the Basilica San Marco) and quickly became noted across Europe for a string of operatic successes which supplied both audiences and singers with dazzling entertainment. He was no musical revolutionary and continued to compose in a well-turned vein of elegant Baroque conventions while composers further north in Europe were experimenting with larger-scale forms and more daring harmonies. However, the keyboard sonatas which Galuppi wrote throughout his career delighted audiences at the time and have continued to do so since. Several collections were issued during his lifetime (and designated with Opus numbers) but a great deal of his keyboard music remains unpublished. collection of 12 three-movement sonatas, drawn from this otherwise unpublished body of work, was edited by Giacomo Benvenuti (1885-1943) and issued by the Francesco Bongiovanni publishing house in 1920, and it is from this collection (familiar to audiences of the 50s through Michelangeli) that Fernanda Damiano plays six sonatas on the present album. Born in Taranto in 1995, Fernanda Damiano made her concerto debut with Haydn’s D major concerto at the Teatro Impero in Trani at the age of 10 and went on to perform as a soloist across Europe and North America. At a young age she is now a teacher herself, professor of piano since 2017 at the Conservatory of Pavia. She is also a teacher of International courses for Musical Interpretation for the Umbria Classica Association of Foligno. ‘The young pianist Fernanda Damiano is a real marvel; she has a very remarkable pianism. She is destined, I am sure, to a very brilliant career’ (Aldo Ciccolini).
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