Piano marathon on December 2
Just a couple of weeks to December 2, the day of the marathon piano recital closing the „Lipatti Days” Festival. While the event celebrates the 95th birth anniversary of the renowned Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti, it will also will end on the day the artist passed away. A series of recitals will bring at the Romanian Atheneum young pianists successfully building their careers – Andrei Licareţ and Mihai Ritivoiu, as well as worldwide famous pianists – Russian Nikolai Lugansky and Alfredo Perl from Chile. The recital is dedicated to the memory of Mihaela Ursuleasa, the Romanian pianist who died this summer at the same age as Dinu Lipatti, 33.
Alfredo Perl, for the second time at the Romanian Atheneum
Alfredo Perl has played in Romania before, at the same Atheneum in Bucharest, in the „George Enescu” International Festival. This is why the invitation to open the marathon recital in the Lipatti Days was, as the Chilean musician himself said, a great joy, because ever since his first time here he wished to return. What does the name of Dinu Lipatti mean for Alfredo Perl? For a pianist from my generation the name of Dinu Lipatti is very powerful. Since I was a child growing up in Chile I listened to all the pianist’s discs and I admired him very much.
Alfredo Perl – business card
One of the most important pianists today, Alfredo Perl received his first training in his home country, Chile, then studied in Germany and in the Great Britain. The pianist considers his evolution in these cultural centres as a continuous line. I think that when one refers to the piano techniques one can find some differences between these three schools, but at the same time differences are also the result of the pianist’s own technique, their own style. Alfredo Perl also believes it is very important to let various influences shape you, but there must always be a line to guide you. It’s a good thing that these piano schools didn’t contradict each other, I didn’t have to learn something and then learn it all over again, differently, from start. Among the personalities who marked his evolution Alfredo Perl counts Claudio Arrau and Alfred Brendel.
Alfredo Perl is currently a pianist and a conductor as well as the Artistic Director of the Detmold Chamber Orchestra and a piano teacher at the Hochschule für Musik in the same city.
Preparing the recital on December 2
Alfredo Perl is one of the best performers of Beethoven’s music and he recorded the complete piano sonatas of the German composer. He believes the music of Beethoven made him turn to the piano. When I was five, I listened to a recording of a trio by Beethoven – I think in fact this is the only memory I have from that age! I remember a sound, an expression which impressed me very much, and this has never changed.
As for the program he will play in the recital on December 2 in the Lipatti Days, a recital he considers to be an homage to Dinu Lipatti, it will feature works by Schumann, Ravel, and, of course, Beethoven. When I hear, inside, the second movement of Beethoven’s Piano sonata no. 17 „The Storm”, I feel it has a natural continuation in the beginning of Schumann’s „Carnival Scenes from Vienna”. I played Ravel’s complete piano works last year, and „Alborada del gracioso” was also one of the best-known recordings of Dinu Lipatti.
