New Classical Tracks: Pushing the Boundaries

Alessio Bax - Alessio Bax plays Beethoven (Signum Classics)

"Originally, I was in love with the organ. That's an instrument I heard in church, and I love the music of Bach and I really wanted to be an organist," recalls pianist Alessio Bax. Even though he couldn't reach the pedals, Alessio started taking organ lessons.

"And then when it came time to enter the conservatory — I was 9 years old — in Italy you have to take five years of piano before they let you switch to the organ. And I really didn't want to," Alessio says. "I mean, there was nothing at that point that attracted me to the piano. Until I started learning the repertoire and then very, very quickly fell in love with it. So the joke is that I'm still waiting to complete these five years to switch to the organ — but honestly, I think I'll just stick with the piano for the time being."

That plan has been working quite well for this award-winning pianist who earned an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009. This month, Alessio Bax performed two Mozart piano concertos at the opening-night gala of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and he's celebrating the release of his all-Beethoven solo recording featuring the "Hammerklavier" and "Moonlight" Sonatas.

Alessio loves the human aspect of Beethoven's music. "With Beethoven, it's music that grows with you and that's what I find so fascinating," he says. "For example, the 'Moonlight' Sonata I played first when I was 8 or 9 years old … when I went back to revisit it, it was a completely different piece because I'd grown meanwhile, and so had the music because of its human connotation. There are just so many layers and so much depth in Beethoven's music that one always has a feeling that you can never reach the top and master it."

The famous first movement is very relaxed and unlike anything else the composer wrote. Even the harmonic tensions are gentle. That's why Alessio says the contrast in the final movement is so important. "He titled it 'sonata quasi fantasia.' So it's almost a fantasy and it has this fantasy world that really comes across," Alessio says. "So it's very, very special. The third movement, I feel, needs a big energetic contrast to make the piece a well-rounded one.

"I also find it amazing … how every movement is in the same key. So there's a connection … when you go from the dreamy first movement, very delicate … [then the middle movement] cute, allegretto and then straight into the last movement, it's the biggest contrast you can imagine." Alessio opens his all-Beethoven program with the Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, also known as the "Hammerklavier," the instrument which was a precursor to today's modern piano. "I think every pianist would agree that it's one of the greatest and most difficult works in the repertoire," Alessio explains. "Just the sheer size of it — it's between 45 and 50 minutes. But also the many, many layers and the technical difficulty and the mental and philosophical difficulty. The slow movement — it's 19, 20 minutes in length and it doesn't leave a stone unturned. It's a really incredible piece of architecture, I think. But at the same time, it's very deep and Beethoven explores every shade of human emotion. So it has many difficulties and on different levels. It's really a lifelong challenge, I would say."


While the first two movements of this iconic sonata are very rhythmic, it is the third slow movement that digs deep into the soul and that's exactly why Alessio is drawn to it. "I have to say — that's one of my favorite movements in all music," he says. "Unusually, it's written in a sonata form, which is used normally for first movements and symphonies and it's for very long movements. Very rarely for short movements. So you know from the beginning that Beethoven was going for something different and much more monumental. I always have a feeling of starting a big journey with this piece but also with this movement itself, because it goes around so many different corners, so many different emotions. It really feels like a very long journey. You know, if you think of Beethoven as the perfect, classic composer — this is very different. This is Beethoven, in my opinion, trying to push the boundaries, trying to go into the Romantic era."

Alessio rounds out his Beethoven program with two of his own transcriptions from Beethoven's incidental music for The Ruins of Athens, starting with the familiar Turkish March. "The other movement I recorded was the chorus of the whirling dervishes. Which is really amazing … if you've ever been to Turkey or Istanbul — it feels like you've just landed in the main square in Istanbul and you see the swirling dervishes and you hear the music. And to think that Beethoven wrote that — that's quite amazing."

Beethoven is quite amazing — especially in the hands of Italian pianist Alessio Bax.

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