In Gabriele Baldocci’s hands the Beethoven/Liszt “Eroica” symphony transcription conveys impressive, multi-leveled pianistic sheen. The long first movement stands out for the pianist’s subtle coloristic distinctions when motives pass from one instrument to the next, as he weighs the massed chordal climaxes with canny calibration. At the same time, Baldocci leaves plenty of space for rhetorical emphasis and tempo modifications that always sound purposeful rather than mannered, like his broadening of the two introductory chords, or in the quiet tension he generates by pulling the tempo back just a hair in the measures leading up to the recapitulation.
Similar rhythmic give and take gives an extra measure of character and contrast to the Funeral March’s right-hand cantabiles and left-hand rhythmic punctuations. To my taste, the movement’s Fughetta builds with more agonizing and shattering impact when one resists the temptation to accelerate (e.g. Toscanini’s great live1939 NBC recording), yet Baldocci manages to make his speeding-up sound convincing.
Baldocci’s staccato chords in the Scherzo may not match Cyprien Katsaris for sheer crispness, but he goes further in pointing up the phrases’ cross-rhytmic implications. Sometimes the finale variations’ momentum sags with the odd tapered phrase or cadential ritard, but you can’t deny Baldocci’s sharply-honed contrapuntal acumen.
Ironically, Baldocci approaches Beethoven’s Op. 126 Bagatelles with broad dynamic brush strokes and a large-scaled forthrightness that suggests more of an orchestra in a concert hall than a piano in an intimate salon. The added grandeur and heft do not sacrifice one iota of the music’s inherent brio, although I miss the disarming lightness and humor one hears from such divergent pianists as Schnabel, Brendel, Kovacevich, and O’Conor. All in all, Baldocci’s highly cultivated artistry warrants serious consideration, and I look forward to his Beethoven/Liszt cycle’s future volumes.
