ANA MARIA TRENCHI BOTTAZZI
The audience was packed into the beautiful little hall at the Goethe
Institute with the stage graced by a lovely Boesendorfer grand piano.
A wonderful setting with an enthusiastic audience - a delight to be
present.
I don’t think there are any really great pianist/artists left.
That golden age is gone with the deaths of so many legends in the past
ten to twenty years. By great
pianist/artists I mean those few who are able to overcome their personal
idiosyncrasies at the door and meld themselves into the music of the genius
composers they put on their programs. Artists
who accepted no compromises based on their inadequacies or peculiarities that
intruded on their performances. But
there is still one left and we were privileged to hear her tonight in this
splendid concert. Her name is Ana
Maria Trenchi Bottazzi.
A sound so golden that even in the most delicate moments the thread of
gold was still there. A technique
so encompassing that it ceased to be a technique and became only a means to
realize the music.
The opening Galuppi Sonata in C major was bursting with fluid rhythms and
timing so perfect that it ceased to have a name.
The Beethoven Sonata in c-# minor, Op. 27, No. 2 was no ethereal
moonlight scene. It was not a bitter Beethoven, disillusioned with God’s
gifts to him but a Beethoven full of joy and youthful serenity (if there is such
a thing) that left you with your own spirit lifted rather than being merely
amazed at a flawless performance.
The Chopin g-minor Ballade was not a sentimental
outpouring of a withered and dying composer but a mix of tragedy and joy that
was life itself. Dr. Bottazzi’s b-minor
Scherzo is second to none and better than nearly any other performance of it I
have ever heard. It had elan and
bravura and the kind of effortless ease that makes you want to laugh in
happiness rather than just applaud in awe.
The solo version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was
a shining testament to the artist’s love of America and the good it represents
for all who come here to live and work and play. The enormous difficulties were forgotten and thoughts of
smoke-filled nightclubs and beautiful women with escorts a little too dapper.
It was a testament to a new nation finding its wings at the hands of the
performer.
We live in an age of terror and confusion and mixed
messages and distrust. Every age is
filled with these elements but today the trend seems to be to worship the
individual with the most obscene eccentricity.
Art as an expression of nobility and the spiritual dreams of mankind
seems to have taken a far back seat to the ones who are the most extreme and
notorious in their every move. This
would paint a very bleak picture of our future and the future of our children if
true great pianist/artists are no longer around. I personally believe they aren’t but I do know of one and
her name is Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi and we heard her this evening.
The encores of the e-minor posthumous Waltz of Chopin
sparkled with a glow we no longer experience. The Malambo of Ginastera was brimming with dash and bravura
and the Liadov Music Box was a delight, as were the anecdotes supplied by the
artist.
Throughout tonight’s concert I kept flashing back
to a performance, many years ago, that I was privileged to witness with Dame
Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev dancing Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake”.
Fonteyn’s fluid grace in every gesture and movement and Nureyev’s raw
and overwhelming energy made my hair stand on end.
Oh if only in musical performers we could find these elements. Sure, there are those who possess limpid grace and those who overpower us with fierce energy but if only both these elements could combine in one artist, regardless of sex. Dr. Bottazzi possesses the fluid grace of Fonteyn but also an immeasurable reserve of Nureyev’s overwhelming power and she is only one person. But what a person and what an artist. It has been my privilege to hear Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi many times but never more vividly portraying these elements as in tonight’s performance. If you weren’t there look for her name the next time she performs and I am sure the review you write will be as humbly on bended knee as mine is now.
I am told that every review should stress the weaknesses of the
performance as well as its strengths. The
only flaw I see in Ana Maria Bottazzi is that she isn’t playing fifty concerts
a year. This is the kind of
artistry we so sorely need to heal the wounds of the Philistines who pose as
artists but only for their own glory.