Italian pianist Restani takes Kuwait to musical crescendo
Musical genius’ piano classical recital part of activities of Settimana Italiana
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 1: From adagio to allegro, the audience in the Abdulhussain Abdulredha Theatre in Salmiya on Wednesday was taken to a great musical treat of classical pieces of Brahms, Chopin,Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov’s compositions, Scriabin and Liszt’s Études, Beethoven, Field, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Casella as world renowned Italian Classical Pianist Paolo Restani performed in the Piano Classical Recital organised by the Italian Embassy in Kuwait as part of the activities of the Settimana Italiana (Italian Week) in Kuwait under the auspices of Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Scognamiglio.
The ‘Italian Week’ is a multi-faceted event that aims to bring ‘more Italy in Kuwait’, featuring art exhibitions, concerts, lectures, a photo contest, a soccer tournament and various promotional activities of the ‘made in Italy’ to further boost the excellent relations between Italy and Kuwait and to broaden the knowledge of areas of excellence, as well as of less known facts about Italy, ‘Bel Paese’ (Beautiful Country).
Arts
The piano recital in cooperation with the National Council of Arts and Letters (NCCAL) in Kuwait took the audience to great musical height with Restani’s breathtaking performance, infused with so much passion every time he touches the piano keys with teeming virtuosity.
In a span of 35 years of piano career, he has given concerts in many of the most important musical venues in the world. His technical mastery and his depth reading in rendering every minor detail of a score, make him an excellent performer especially in the Romantic repertoire where his virtuoso skills are a naturally reminiscent of the greatest names of the piano-playing tradition: in his interpretation of Chopin’s compositions, his affinity with Vladimir Horowitz is quite surprising in relation to timbre, richness of colour and clarity of the melody (Allgemeine Zeitung after a recital in Frankfurt in 1996).
“He is a musical genius and a virtuoso to the truest sense of the word and I’m deeply captivated by his performance. What a lovely night of music,” quipped Sarah Al-Abdullah, a pianist who also dreams of having her piano recital someday. The audience accorded Restani a crescendo of applause at the end of every musical piece and finally, he graciously took a bow with a smile amid the thunderous applause from the audience.
“Indeed it’s a musical night to remember. I was totally drawn to how he played the piano. I can feel the overflowing of emotions. It was a fantastic performance!” stated Jose Rodriguez, a Spanish expat in Kuwait.
Restani showed his prodigious capabilities already in his first recital at the age of 12. In 1984, invited for a cycle of recitals at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome by the great artistic director Francesco Siciliani, Restani gained an extraordinary success as reported by the most prestigious press in Italy. Since then, engagements with the most prestigious theatres in Italy followed on and among the many successes of those years were the memorable concert at Sala Verdi in Milan for the Serate Musicali: in January 1988, invited to replace Alexis Weissenberg in few hours notice, he performed a programme including Beethoven’s Eroica Variations and Liszt’s 12 Etudes d’Exécution Transcendante.
Restani was the last and best-loved piano-pupil of Vincenzo Vitale (a renowned representative of the Neaple piano-school, who underwent piano-studies with Florestano Rossomandi, Attilio Brugnoli and, in the end, with Alfred Cortot at École Normale de Musique de Paris). In the following, Paolo Restani’s teachers were Gerhard Oppitz (a successor of the interpretative art of Wilhelm Kempff) at Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich and Peter Lang at Mozarteum in Salzburg. In addition he attended pianolessons under Gustav Kuhn, Piero Rattalino, Aldo Ciccolini and Vadimir Ahskenazy. He studied composition with Paolo Arcà in Rome and Bruno Bettinelli in Milan.
He was soloist with orchestras such as Münchner Symphoniker, Berliner Symphoniker, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, St. Petersburg Academic Symphony, Philarmonique de Nice, Slovenia RTV, Sinfonica Nacional de Chile, Kiev Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker String Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, Orchestra dell’ Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Milan, Rome and Neaple RAI National Symphony Orchestras, Orchestra del Teatro San Carlo di Napoli, Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino, Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Orchestra dell’Arena di Verona, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, Orchestra del Teatro Verdi di Trieste, Orchestra Sinfonica Arturo Toscanini di Parma. Among the conductors: Roberto Abbado, Gerd Albrecht, Piero Bellugi, Christian Benda, Yoram David, Vladimir Delman, Claus Peter Flor, Heiko Mathias Forster, Lu Jia, Lothar Koenigs, Gerard Korsten, Julian Kavatchev, Gustav Kuhn, Yoel Levi, John Nelson, John Neschling, Gunter Neuhold,
Daniel Oren, Massimo Pradella, Donato Renzetti.
Seasons
His recitals of the recent seasons include the following events: Carnegie Hall in New York, Grosser Musikvereinsaal in Vienna, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Prinzregententheater in Münich, Rheingoldhalle in Mainz, New Congress-Hall in Innsbruck, International Performing Arts Centre in Moscow, Great Hall of the Philharmonic in St Petersburg, Colon and Coliseo Theatres in Buenos Aires, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Beirut, Santiago in Chile, Montevideo, Dubai. In Italy: Milan (Teatro alla Scala, Auditorium La Verdi), Rome (Quirinale, Auditorium del Parco della Musica, Teatro dell’Opera, Auditorium di Via della Conciliazione, Teatro Sistina), Neaple (Teatro San Carlo, Teatro Augusteo, Politeama), Venice (Teatro La Fenice), Trieste (Teatro Verdi), Verona (Arena), Bologna (Teatro Comunale), Florence (Teatro Comunale, Teatro della Pergola), Turin (Teatro Regio, Auditorium RAI), Bari (Teatro Petruzzelli), Genoa (Teatro Carlo Felice), Palermo (Politeama). Prestigious musical festivals, where he is regularly invited, include: Flanders Festival, Martha Argerich Festival in Buenos Aires, London Hatchlands Music Festival, Istanbul Recitals, Al Bustan Festival in Beirut, Ljubljana Festival, Jornadas Internacionales de Piano in Oviedo, Asturias Festival, Ravenna Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Settembre Musica in Turin, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli International Piano Festival in Brescia and Bergamo, Festival Verdi in Parma, Festival Uto Ughi per Roma, Panatenee Pompeiane, Festival Romaeuropa, Todi Arte Festival, Ravello Festival. In January 2008, invited by Yuri Temirkanov, he takes part in the “XVII International Festival Christmas musical meeting in Palmira of the North” in St. Petersburg.
Music
Restani, very keen on chamber music, played with the Quartetto d’archi della Scala, the Quartetto Fonè, the Quartetto David, the Solisti della Scala, the violist Simonide Braconi, the cellist Andrea Noferini and accompanied, in song cycles, Monica Bacelli, Guillemette Laurens and Claire Brua.
A versatile musician and fully aware of the possible integration among various art forms, Restani has played as co-protagonist in theatrical productions accompanying artists such as Gérard Depardieu, Enrico Maria Salerno, Mariano Rigillo, Gottfried Wagner, Carla Fracci, Sylvie Guillelme, Laurent Hilaire. Particularly with Chiara Muti from 2006 to 2008 he created three original musical plays on Rachmaninov-Gogol, on the life of Mozart, and on the Wagner-Ludwig II relationship. From 2013 he is near Simona Marchini in the pièce devoted to Verdi, still on the Italian stages.
His extensive repertoire ranges from Bach to present-day composers, and includes more than 60 concertos for piano and orchestra and a same number of solo-recital programmes. He also has numerous CD and DVD recordings.