Review on the digital newspaper "classicalnews.net" - 15.11.23

 

"Their grace, mastery and closeness resonate in Mendelssohn's marriage of brio and intimacy. [...] A wink and taste for surprise, too, as they each offer us a mystery intermezzo at the heart of each part of their concert. A surprise for the audience, caught up in a tenderness tinged with pain: it's an intimate Liszt that Chiara sublimates. Then, with her sister, she offers all their high-flying fantasy and agility in Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody n°2.

 

After the break and the answer to the first riddle, the two sisters take us to the cinema, at Stravinsky's house, as Stéphane Friédérich tells it. And he is right: the taste for sound, life and space flows from the piano to the front of the stage, where the artists now place their four hands and cross their talents. Fiona then settles in at the other piano for her surprise intermezzo: a fluid, enchanted harmonic interlude. Debussy, will tell the connoisseur and musical traveler. Ravel and his waltz, in which Diaghilev didn't see a ballet but the painting of a ballet, share his poetry and torments with the obsessive rhythm and mood changes that keep us spellbound and on the edge of our seats. The audience jubilates and gets an encore ... still Hungarian, but signed Brahms, if I'm not mistaken. 

 

We can't wait to hear the Alaimo sisters again: yesterday's concert in front of a full house marked a new chapter in their history, and in the history of this art form." [Translation]

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Marc Phalippou