Sounds like a modern version of Dinu Lipatti, very beautiful and wonderful to li
author: Eliot Cachet
This CD sounds the best I've heard so far from Julian Gargiulo. I intend on getting all my friends a copy as soon as possible!
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Clairvoyant savant of romantic music
author: Veronica
If you’ve visited Europe then you’ve no-doubt stood awestruck before one of those great ancient cathedrals, astounded at its height, girth, and gothic architecture. DeBussy would have us imagine one of these behemoths rising from beneath the sea to sit momentarily glistening like a jewel before sinking back into oblivion. Why? Who knows…but *how* is here, in Julian’s hands. Far from the polite pastel coloration often given to interpretations of DeBussy, Julian evokes the powerful dark forces of both ocean and edifice to raise the monstrosity amid froth and tumult and then deftly balance it in brilliant, stately beauty, turning it gently to show each glittering facet before slowly, sadly submerging it again. His rendering runs the full course of sensations: threat, excitement, awe, admiration, release, and regret. The whole story is told… somehow a cathedral does rise from the waves and recede again… or some monster reveals its fragile beauty and disappears. Julian manages to convey not only the full story of the composition but also the full range of the composer, who is renowned for discord, pacificity and impressionism. But if he can portray DeBussy well, Julian is unparalleled at Scriabin, besting even son-in-law Sofronitsky and current devotee Pletnev with his ability to take those seemingly incomprehensible tangles of music and emotion and turn them just so that they are suddenly astoundingly beautiful to behold. In other hands, Scriabin’s pieces remain enigmatic, unsolved problems…but Julian somehow reaches through them and solves them effortlessly, pulling from the tumultuous froth yet another glistening jewel (see his “Romantic Piano” album for other pieces by Scriabin). There’s something of the clairvoyant and savant in this pianist’s sensibilities for Romantic works, complemented by craft, technique and personal expression.
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