PIANO RECITAL
FOR THE HOLY FATHER
World-famous Chinese pianist Jin Ju, 31, gave a solo recital for the Holy Father Saturday evening at Aula Paolo VI, performing on seven historical instruments illustrating the development of the piano from the clavichord to the present concert grand piano.
She performed virtuoso pieces by Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Czerny, Beethoven, Chopin, Tschaikovsky and Liszt. The occasion was the 20th anniversary of the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale of Imola, in Italy's Romagna region, where Jin Ju teaches. It is considered Italy's leading piano school today.
I missed the first 25 minutes of the recital (missed the Bach, Scarlatti and Mozart, and came in while she was doing the Czerny), but managed to capture some images for the rest of it (almost an hour more) while listening enthralled to this amazing virtuoso pianist....
I indulged myself by cropping the screen captures in this first panel to include Papino 'peeking' from the Vatican Radio mural, as it appears on my PC screen - I still cannot get CTV directly through CTV but I discovered I can get it though Vatican Radio online!
Here is a translation of the Holy Father's remarks after the performance:
Eminent cardinals,
Dear brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Distinguished authorities,
Dear friends!
We gathered this evening for another concert of remarkable artistic level and great historical value after the concert we attended last week at the Auditorium of Via della Conciliazione.
I address to each and everyone my heartfelt greeting: to the cardinals, bishops and prelates, to the authorities, to the special guests and to all who are present. I wish to direct a partitcular greeting to the Synodal Fathers, who have wished to share together this moment of serene relaxation.
In the name of everyone, I express my heartfelt thanks to the "Encounters with the masters" program of the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale of Imola. I wish to thank and express sincere appreciation above all to Maestro Franco Scala, who founded this deserving musical institution twenty years ago and continues to lead it with passion and talent.
I also thank him for the words which earlier this evening he delivered on behalf of you all. And my gratitude to the pianist Jin Ju, who has made us experience the expressive potential of the keyboard, from the fortepiano to the pianoforte, and the emotional weight of the music she performed.
Finally, I must thank all those who in various ways cooperated to the realization of this event.
Dear friends, this evening we were led to an engaging itinerary, historic and artistic, which shows the evolution of the fortepiano, later pianoforte, one of the musical instruments best known and favored by the most famous music composers - an instrument that is capable of offering not a small range of harmonious musical nuances.
The seven (historical) instruments used tonight, coming from the important collection of Imola, which has more than a hundred of them, constitute in themselves an aesthetic, artistic and historic patrimony, both because they emit the sounds that men of the past heard, and because they bear witness to the progress in the craftsmanship of the pianoforte, revealing the intuitions and successive processes of its perfection by skilled and unequalled instrument builders.
This concert has allowed us, once more, to taste the beauty of music, a spiritual and therefore universal language, a vehicle that is more than ever adapted to understanding and unity among persons and peoples.
Music is part of all cultures and, we might say, accompanies every human experience, from pain to pleasure, from hate to love, from sorrow to joy, from death to life.
We see how in the course of centuries and millennia, music was always used to give shape to what cannot be expressed in words because it arouses emotions that are otherwise difficult to communicate. It is not by chance, therefore, that every civilization has given importance and value to music in its various forms and expressions.
Music - great music - opens up the spirit, inspires profound sentiments, and almost naturally invites us to lift up our minds and hearts to God in every situation, whether it is glorious or sad, of human existence. Music can become prayer.
Thanks again to those who organized this beautiful evening. Dear friends, I bless you all from my heart.
The longest piece Jin Ju played was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I could not identify the Chopin and Tschaikovsky, but the latter was a real virtuosic feat. She ended with Liszt's Rigoletto Fantasy, and encored briefly with the 'Jesus joy of man desiring' excerpt from Bach's Cantata BWV 147.... Her playing is so clean that even in the most tempestuous and rapid virtuoso passages, one can hear each note articulated (rarely have I heard the left hand parts played so distinctly) that she sometimes sounded like there were more than two hands playing, and you could literally imagine the notes as they appear on the music score. She has such absolute mastery of technique that she can simply concentrate on her interpretation. In this, she is helped by her punctilious and awesome observance of dynamic markings (like Herbert von Karajan used to manage even with the largest orchestras).... One can only have reverence for the the composers who had the genius to produce endlessly inventive, technically challenging and spiritually uplifting music, and the performers who can execute them with such almost superhuman skill and exquisite artistry.... And one can appreciate all over what an exceptional and unequalled instrument the piano is (in all its versions). Is there a more demanding human skill? What a magnificent gift this recital was - and not only to the Holy Father! One comes away exalted!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/10/2010 23:15]