Meisterkonzerte St. Pölten

The Italian pianist GIOVANNI UMBERTO BATTEL is considered an expert in super-virtuoso piano music. For this evening, he has chosen a particularly appealing and colorful selection of short and sometimes entertaining piano pieces.

In “Estampes” (“Pictures/Graphics”) by Claude Debussy, he takes us to the landscapes of France, to Indonesia and, with a “Habanera”, also to Andalusia.

It is particularly exciting to compare how a “true Spaniard”, namely the composer Manuel de Falla, deals with the same subject matter, i.e. Andalusian folk music, in a completely different way to his French colleague.

Lovely dances (waltz and minuet) by Maurice Ravel and his really witty “Grotesque Serenade” are very special samples, which could actually be “encores” in their brevity and originality.

The world-famous fiery “Russian Dance” and other fantastic effect pieces from Igor Stravinsky 's famous orchestral ballet music “Petrushka” in the exorbitantly difficult version for solo piano bring the varied program to an impressive conclusion.