Press:

Roberto Piana: Grand Fantasy on Puccini’s “La bohème”; Grand Fantasy on Bizet’s “Carmen.” Antonio Pompa-Baldi, piano. Steinway & Sons”

Pompa-Baldi is an absolutely first-rate advocate of this music: assured, fully engaged in the material, equally able to bring forth themes and figurations from right or left hand or in a combination of both, a whirlwind in fast passages and a sensitively introspective, contemplative interpreter of slower, quieter ones. The warmth and beauty of Puccini are given their full due by both Piana and Pompa-Baldi, and the piquancy and exoticism of Bizet come through equally clearly. Operagoers will relish hearing familiar tunes throughout both these fantasies, expanded and rearranged and varied and combined. But the music also reaches out effectively to listeners who may never have seen either opera – it simply pulls an audience in through its display of beautiful tunes and themes, and their elaboration and highly effective presentation by a pianist who here shows himself to be a 21st-century heir of a grand 19th-century performing tradition (read more at http://transcentury.blogspot.com/2021/02/directions-of-modernity.html)

Pompa-Baldi & Friscioni open Tri-C Classical Piano Series

January 26, 2021 by Daniel Hathaway

Hearing these pianists play a casa was a special experience the likes of which rarely happens in a concert hall.

The annual quartet of free concerts presented on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series usually happens at the Cleveland Museum of Art, taking profit of the crowds that show up early on Sunday afternoons to entice museumgoers to make a detour into Gartner Auditorium during their visit.

Although the Museum had just opened again earlier in the week, in-person concerts were not on the agenda. Instead, Classical Piano Series director Emanuela Friscioni and her husband Antonio Pompa-Baldi invited a virtual audience into their handsome, sun-dappled music room for an intimate, exquisitely-played program of four-hand piano works by Schubert and Debussy topped off with the premiere of a new work by their fellow Italian, Luca Moscardi.

The one-hour program, including brief remarks by both pianists, worked beautifully in its online format. Multiple cameras, cleverly concealed, focused in on the performers from various angles. An iPad replaced the customary page turner.

With Pompa-Baldi on primo (treble end of the keyboard) and Friscioni on secondo (bass end), the duo led off with Schubert’s wonderful Fantasia in f, a piece that deliciously trades off minor and major versions of themes and makes excursions into contrasting music, always stopping in mid-phrase to return once again to the opening material.

The two pianists were perfectly matched technically, played from a single mind, and their phrasing and articulation were crisp and pristine.
Trading ends of the keyboard, Friscioni and Pompa-Baldi made a charming musical excursion out of the four movements — En Bateau, Cortgége, Menuet, and Ballet — of Debussy’s Petite Suite. Written for amateurs, the piece takes on a special sheen in the hands of professionals, and couldn’t have been more charmingly performed by these four hands.

Those who find premieres scary (or unlikely to lead to second performances) would surely delight in Moscardi’s Suite, Op. 13. Completely accessible on first hearing, the piece might be just a few minutes too long in some of its four movements, yet Ricordi d’infanzia, Siciliana, Berceuse, and Tarantella are fresh-sounding while still falling on the ear like familiar friends. Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni gave Moscardi’s often pop-influenced music a bright, engaging reading, ending with his brilliant Tarantella. Watch the video of their performance of the Suite here.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com January 26, 2021

Tri-C Classical Piano Series: Pompa-Baldi & Friscioni (Mar. 24)

It’s always a joy to hear two wonderful pianists team up in concert, as was the case on March 24 when husband-and-wife duo of Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscioni played the latest installment of the Tri-C Classical Piano Series at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium.

Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni (who is director of the series) succeeded at making two pianos sound like one. Playing side by side, they could see each other’s hands and make easy eye contact. Not only were they perfectly in sync, their playing sounded effortless, agreeing completely on tempos and style.

20th-century Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino hewed close to traditional tonal ideas with a clear style that is both Latin and grounded in his nation’s music. A perfect example is his Tres romances argentinos, Op. 2 (1948). These three waltz-like pieces were ravishing in the hands of the performers. At times reminiscent of Liszt and Debussy, this pleasant triptych mixes pensive minor and vigorous major keys with a delightful melodic joie de vivre. The central work of the afternoon was Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Two Pianos. Mixing the composer’s signature bombast and melodic gift, Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni brought out both the beauty and Stravinskyan ugliness inherent in its four movements. Pounding chords opened the Prologue, while the fleet-footed second movement allegro was wonderfully insouciant. The regal plumage of the slow movement still featured the composer’s trickster quality amidst its beautiful tune. Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni made a great case for this towering, yet bubbling sonata.
After intermission, the duo turned to two late 19th-century Russian pieces, both titled Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos. Anton Arensky’s Op. 15 and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Op. 5 were each drenched in late Romantic virtuosity and attractive melodies. Arensky brought Chopin to mind, while Rachmaninoff’s four French-titled movements were dreamy and evocative of the river, night, sadness, and Easter church bells. Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni played them with emotive assurance and joy.

Two tango encores by Astor Piazzolla — Libertango and Oblivion — in vigorous and exciting arrangements by Italian pianist-composer Roberto Piana, sent the audience off into the early spring afternoon in a dancing mood.
https://clevelandclassical.com/tri-c-classical-piano-series-pompa-baldi-friscioni-mar-24/#more-32282
Published on ClevelandClassical.com March 26, 2019.

Antonio Pompa-Baldi – “Fingers of a virtuoso, soul of a poet, and stamina of a marathon runner”

http://clevelandclassical.com/akron-symphony-opening-night-with-pianist-antonio-pompa-baldi-sept-24/

Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi joined Christopher Wilkins and the Akron Symphony in E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday, September 24 to open the orchestra’s new season with Rachmaninoff’s third concerto — a 40-minute adventure in Slavic lyricism laced through with enough physical challenges to tie a lesser pianist in knots. Pompa-Baldi played it with the fingers of a virtuoso, the soul of a poet, and the stamina of a marathon runner.

Antonio Pompa-Baldi rose heroically to the challenge of making the piano heard over a large orchestra, a task further complicated by the Thomas Hall’s cottony acoustic. He appeared to be working hard, using his down time at the beginning of the second movement to stretch out his hands behind him on the bench. Even in the thickest textures, his tone remained dark, lyrical, and unforced. His cadenzas sounded newly-minted and spontaneous.

Coming at the end of the evening, Pompa-Baldi’s performance won him a huge and protracted ovation.

ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI’S AMBITIOUS BOSTON RECITAL PROGRAM: with Favorites and Lesser Knowns

by by Alex Ludwig
February 10, 2011

On Tuesday night, February 8, Antonio Pompa-Baldi played an expansive program as part of the Piano Masters Series at Boston Conservatory. Pompa-Baldi, a silver medalist at the Van Cliburn Competition, displayed both technical ability and sensitive musicianship in this ambitious program that featured familiar works from Schubert and Chopin, as well as lesser-known works by Edward Grieg and Giuseppe Martucci.

Known as a champion of Grieg’s piano works, Pompa-Baldi opened the evening with Grieg’s Sonata in E minor, op. 7. This work retains the traditional four-movement format, yet includes a distinctly Scandinavian temperament. The first two movements range from a plaintive, yet martial opening to a lyrical second movement, which features rolling accompaniments well suited to the piano. The third movement is a dark and somber interpretation of a Minuet, a courtly dance in the time of Haydn, which Beethoven soon thereafter transformed; and Pompa-Baldi convincingly brought out its dark and sinister mood. If you’re familiar with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, think more of the “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and less of “Morning Mood.”

The next work on the program, Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie, op. 61, required an immediate change in mood. The title refers to its roots: Polonaise is a French designation for Poland, Chopin’s native country; and Fantaisie implies a loosely structured musical form. Pompa-Baldi excelled at the delicate, improvisatory nature of this work: the intricate passagework, which featured an ascending arpeggio, required that each hand cross over the other, and the conclusion featured a shimmering, two-handed trill that he handled with ease. Pompa-Baldi made the Chopin sound seamless and intricate, even more so after the heavier work by Grieg.

Martucci’s Fantasia, op. 51, initially grabbed the audience’s attention with acrobatic flourishes, but yielded to a middle section of lyrical passages. In one sense, the first half of the program represented three statements on national character: Grieg’s Scandinavian darkness, Chopin’s Polish music seen through the eyes of a Frenchman, and Martucci’s Italian sense for the dramatic.

The second half of the program was organized around a different principle, the technique of variation. Schubert’s Impromptu in B-flat major, op. 142 appeared just as the Classical period was overtaken by the Romantic, and indeed, this work has a foot in both worlds. It is a theme-and-variations movement, Classical by nature, but also featuing an approach to harmony that is very much rooted in Romanticism. Pompa-Baldi exploited the dual personality of this work extraordinarily, with a sensitive rendering of the second variation, which sounds vaguely like a calliope, and with fantastic flourishes in the fifth variation.

Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, op. 9, a famously difficult work, has twenty-one movements representing different characters –– both real and fictional –– in Schumann’s life. Some of the most notable appearances are: Chopin (#13), Clara Wieck (#12), and Paganni (#17); as well as fictional characters like Eusebius and Florestan, Schumann’s impetuous and idyllic alter egos (#5 and #6), and Pierrot and Arlequin, stock characters from Commedia dell’arte (#2 and #3). Evoking this coterie of subjects is difficult, yet Pompa-Baldi clearly enjoyed the challenge.

Extraordinary Talent Thrills Packed Center

Barbara Goldowsky
Southampton Press, May 29, 2009

In the 10 years since he won first prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Italian-born pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi has established a distinguished career as a soloist with major orchestras, as a recitalist, and as a teacher in the United States and internationally.

On Saturday evening, he treated a capacity audience at the Southampton Cultural Center’s Levitas Center for the Arts to a concert that brilliantly showcased his extraordinary talent.

The conductor Grant Cooper led the scrupulously polished accompaniment with élan. The myriad little solo moments for winds and strings shone and the horns, trumpets and timpani sounded robust.

This was one of the finest performances I have heard in 18 seasons as a music critic.

The program featured music from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and all three composers whose works were played, as it happens, had life spans that bridged two centuries. The concert concluded the 2008-2009 season of “Rising Stars” piano recitals, but as Liliane Questel, the series director, correctly noted in her introductory remarks, the word “rising” no longer applies. Mr. Pompa-Baldi is a star—and he is shining brightly.

REVIEW: Pianist Pompa-Baldi powers delicious, decadent Viva! series concert

J. Kappes
November 14, 2008

Reinberger Chamber Hall, Severance Hall
Wednesday, Nov. 12

If pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi had a nickel for every note he played Wednesday night at Severance Hall, he’d be a wealthy man. In fact, he’d probably have enough to buy his wife, pianist Emanuela Friscioni, who joined him onstage, a fabulous piece of jewelry. Something, say, by Faberge or Tiffany.

Both musicians certainly deserve some such treasure after their ravishing performances in a concert called “Music of Opulence and Decadence Around 1900,” a Viva! & Gala Around Town event conceived by the Cleveland Museum of Art to mirror its current “Artistic Luxury” exhibition.

French music was the focus. But a larger theme about elegance gradually took shape in Reinberger Chamber Hall as works by Faure, Debussy, Arensky and Ravel were presented in order of increasing musical sumptuousness.

First up was Faure’s D-Minor Piano Quintet, Op. 89. Heavenly moments abounded as Pompa-Baldi, winner of the 1999 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, rendered music of silken tenderness entirely weightless and the Cavani String Quartet generated gorgeous waves of sound by overlapping their four distinctive sonorities.

Yet the performance remained steadfastly earthbound. Scanning constantly for emotional depth beneath the work’s beautiful surface, the quartet maintained an edgy tone that amplified the tension and urgency inherent in the music. Rarely has Faure packed such a wallop.

Lighter fare awaited in Debussy’s evocative “Petite Suite” for piano, four hands. But Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni took the four short pieces seriously, turning in performances full of color and animation.

Cranking up the opulence on the second half, the gifted husband-and-wife team sat facing each other at separate instruments to perform Anton Arensky’s little-known Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos and Ravel’s wildly elaborate “La Valse.”

Each of Arensky’s three pieces allowed the pianists to indulge their showy sides. What began in the “Romance” as affectionate overtures gradually swelled to full-fledged passion, while the “Waltz” and “Polonaise” movements careened over the top in blazes of ornamental excess.

But the best truly had been saved for last.
Ravel’s vision of innocent times past received a cataclysmic performance by Pompa-Baldi and Friscioni, with bubbly dance melodies struggling mightily not to drown in a murky sea of gloom. Here, in the end, was decadence.

Pompa-Baldi and local orchestra combine in brilliant Beethoven

David Williams
April 12, 2008

Local universities use the West Virginia Symphony’s concerts for students to gain fine arts credits. So it was no surprise that the balcony had a number of collegians in it Friday night. One of them left rather noisily through a side door early in Antonio Pompa-Baldi’s performance of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major.

Maybe today’s youth can’t handle slow music… but I was left wondering, “Does this student realize he is leaving in the middle of the finest performance of a Beethoven concerto I have ever heard?”

I did not hear anything in the rest of the slow movement or the finale to persuade me otherwise. I don’t know if Pompa-Baldi is always this exceptional, although his placement in major competitions suggests he can be. To be sure, Friday night, he was stellar.

It was his rhythm that impressed first. He did not fudge shifts among subdivisions of beats, even the often-fuzzy shift from duplets to triplets. That neatness of rhythm aided beautifully crystalline textures.

His tone was never forced or steely. Even in the loudest passages there was remarkable warmth.

In the slow movement, his playing of little cadenzas with difficult thirds and sixths was lucid and the little obbligato figures that float through the final section were perfectly shaped.

The hiccupping theme of the final rondo was rowdy without overheating, and Pompa-Baldi’s laser-precise rhythm drove the proceedings nimbly.