Home     Artists    Contact
WEINSTADT ARTISTS MANAGEMENT
 
 

Back to artist

 

Reviews RINALDO ALESSANDRINI

 

Diapason juni 2021: CD Bach - Klavierwerke
Trois Suites imaginaires dans le mode mineur, voilà le carnet de route fixé par Rinaldo Alessandrini pour sa nouvelle incursion soliste au pays de Bach. Avec une liberté calculée, chaque partie du programme progressant du plus simple au plu complexe, le claveciniste cueille Inventions, Sinfonie extraits du Clavier bien tempéré, miniatures (des « petits préludes »  ou pages plus vastes, pour composer des bouquets dont la parenté d'essence n'est jamais synonyme d'uniformité. On s'émerveille, au contraire, de la variété de formes de couleurs, de parfums qu'ils nous offrent.
…, l'ambiguïté du Ricercar à 3 de L’Offrande musicale constituent un envoi idéal pour ce florilège marqué du sceau d'une autorité sans raideur; tout finit et recommence avec cette pièce, invitation à réécouter un disque où l'intelligence le dispute à la sensibilité. Jean-Christophe Pucek - Article

Musicweb-International May 2021 : CD Bach - Klavierwerke
…I have listened to it four times, each time hearing something new and different in Rinaldo Alessandrini’s playing, his easy, fluid style making me want to listen to the disc again and again. This recording brings great joy …
Fantasia & Fugue in A minor, BWV904, is excellent, showing Alessandrini at his best.
…However, it is the Sonata for Keyboard in D Minor, BWV964 which is the standout piece here; it still sounds odd in Bach’s own arrangement but the work challenges Alessandrini’s virtuosity and he comes through with flying colours.
The superb treatment of the three short opening pieces in final section in C minor is a delight throughout; they are slightly longer and Alessandrini certainly gets hold of them. Indeed, he really shines in the longer pieces …. Add to this the excellent performance of the Fantasia in C minor, BWV906 and the Ricercar a 3 from the Musical Offering, and this final section leaves me wanting more.Stuart Sillitoe - Review in full

On-mag.fr 17/05/2021 : CD : Bach au clavier selon Rinaldo Alessandrini
…Pour son nouvel album consacré à la musique de clavier de Bach, Rinaldo Alessandrini fait œuvre résolument didactique en rapprochant une trentaine de pièces … Plutôt qu'une énième intégrale de telle ou telle œuvre, voilà une manière enrichissante d'aborder cette musique combien riche et d'apprécier l'art souverain du claveciniste italien.
…Rinaldo Alessandrini déploie un art souverain, basé sur la lisibilité de la polyphonie, mais aussi empreint du souci de mettre en valeur le chant sous-jacent. Rien d'étonnant chez un musicien qui se confronte régulièrement aux domaines symphonique et lyrique avec son ensemble Concerto Italiano. Jean-Pierre Robert - Article

Classical-Music 13/05/2021 : CD Bach: Klavierwerke – Preludes and Fugues, Fantasias, etc
…The playing is elegantly poised with remarkable expressive range. A prime example is Alessandrini’s performance of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier: the Prelude has genuine humour, while in the long succeeding Fugue the structure is beautifully articulated with no hint of didacticism. Equally impressive is the strength with which bass lines are shaped… Among the many riches to be enjoyed is the D minor Sonata, Bach’s superb reimagining of the A minor Violin Sonata (BWV 1003); the opening Adagio opens up unsuspected vistas while the brilliant concluding Allegro has abundant thrills without any technical spills. Altogether this recording shows off much of what is best about contemporary harpsichord playing. Jan Smaczny - Review in full

Gramophone May 2021 : CD Bach Kavierwerke
….Alessandrini is a solid Bach-player in the positive sense of having a good understanding of his subject and the strength of technique and musicality to realise it. He caresses the music’s contours, allowing it to breathe with well judged ritardandos at crucial moments, and uses unobtrusively spread chords to accentuate an interesting dissonance or neatly smooth an angular corner. His textures are clean and transparent, and his crisp articulation lets light into the fugues…  Lindsay Kemp – Review in full

The Arts Desk 27/03/2021 : CD Bach: Klavierwerke Rinaldo Alessandrini (Naïve)
… A continual delight is the care and attention which Alessandrini lavishes on the smallest of pieces, a work like the tiny BWV 90 D minor prelude packing a disproportionate punch.
That the harpsichord sound is so colourful is another bonus, Alessandrini playing a 1984 copy of an 18th century original. I love the springiness he brings to the faster numbers, the triplet rhythms of the first WTC’s D minor prelude irresistibly bouncy, Bach’s bass line bouncing along. … Alessandrini is superb in the finale, the different voices perfectly characterised. You’re continually surprised at Bach’s originality, the sudden C major cadence ending an extract from The Musical Offering a delicious surprise. A clever, joyous collection. Graham Rickson – Review in full

Artamag’ 2/07/2020 : le disque du jour – Eloquence - Suites pour clavecin de Louis Couperin
Rinaldo Alessandrini au clavecin
La langue roide de Louis Couperin trouva son meilleur avocat dans le grand geste du clavecin de Blandine Verlet, il faudra désormais lui adjoindre les danses altières et les récits lyriques que Rinaldo Alessandrini contraste avec tant de véhémence sur le clavecin roide qu’il aura choisi pour cet album sévère et rayonnant à la fois. …
Au centre du disque, une lecture aux couleurs tragiques de la Suite en fa majeur, grandiose par ses phrasés, ardente dans ses danses (les deux Courantes, pleines de gestes impérieux), phrasée avec un art de la diction tout au long d’une Sarabande d’anthologie.  Jean-Charles Hoffelé -  Article

The Times14/09/2019 : CD Louis Couperin - Suites
Louis Couperin, short-lived uncle of the more celebrated François, was a composer, a musician at Louis XIV’s court, inventor of the unmeasured prelude (where the performer has absolute rhythmic freedom) and author of about 200 unpublished keyboard pieces. Alessandrini has gathered some of them, and a few by other composers, into three suites, performing them on a rich-sounding harpsichord with the requisite Gallic liquid elegance. SP

ClassiqueNews.com 31/01/2017: Mozart, Beethoven,Schubert : Symphonies  ; Orch. National du Capitole / Rinaldo Alessandrini - Un concert tout en équilibre
…L’équilibre orchestral est parfait, tous les plans sont mis en lumière, les tempi, sont raisonnables. Les nuances sont sans surprise et l’orchestre semble jouer avec plaisir sous la direction rigoureuse du chef Italien.  De la belle musique sans heurts.
Pour la quatrième symphonie de Franz Schubert, les cors sont augmentés et les couleurs dites « tragiques » peuvent se dévoiler. Rien de bien particulier dans la direction de Rinaldo Alessandrini : il laisse les belles sonorités de l’orchestre de déployer. Hubert Stoecklin - Article

The Australian 9/03/2017 : L’Orfeo: Concerto Italiano’s benchmark for authentic Monteverdi
… During the past few years, Concerto Italiano has placed itself at the forefront of Monteverdi performance with Alessandrini’s burst of research into the composer, including a new critical edition of L’Orfeo.
And how indescribably beautiful this performance sounded: acutely sensitive to word, full of movement and anima, and ravishing in its sweep of sounds. …This was a concert performance, not a staged production, but that proved no disappointment. Concerto Italiano’s 11 singers and 24 instrumentalists delivered a full sense of the work’s drama with such sophistication that they rendered any extra trimmings almost unnecessary.
One feels Alessandrini has discovered a lot more that is implicit in the music, and rather than following what others have done he has created a new benchmark for how L’Orfeo may originally have sounded. Graham Strahle - Full article                                                                                      

Bactrack 8/03/2017 : Concerto Italiano’s classy L’Orfeo thrills in Adelaide’s Town Hall
Concerto Italiano impresses with its class. The ensemble is on a world tour honouring the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s birth and the 410th anniversary of the first performance of L’Orfeo. Since director Rinaldo Alessandrini, who also conducts, plays the harpsichord and the organ, founded Concerto Italiano in 1984, it has become one of the premier Baroque ensembles in the world. …This was a very authentic performance, capturing the vision of four hundred years ago. I found it an intensely satisfying experience.  Brian Angus - Article

BroadwayWorld 24/02/2017 : What's Really Old is New Again, with POPPEA from Concerto Italiano at Carnegie Hall
Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione de Poppea is considered the oldest opera in existence, but the version performed by Concerto Italiano at Carnegie Hall the other night, as part of the La Serenissima Festival (celebrating all things Venetian), showed it is also one of the freshest.
…Concerto Italiano, led by Alessandrini from the harpsichord, gave an immaculate performance that put the singers--and Maestro Monteverdi--first, putting together an outstanding group of singers for the evening, starting with Persson, who was glamorous both musically and physically in her roles. … a beautiful evening. Richard Sasanow - Full article

 

top