The last concert of this year’s Exposition of New Music festival was a recital by the Italian pianist Emanuele Torquati. It was held on October 23rd at the Bedední dům in Brno and consisted of six piano pieces by contemporary composers. Czech music was represented by two compositions by Petr Bakla one of which, First Movement and Variations, was performed for the very first time.
This two-part piece from 2012 demonstrates, as the author puts it, his “interest in working with simultaneous progression through dynamically differentiated layers of sound, a fondness for stepwise motion and a reliance on classical piano sound”. These features can be traced in Melody and Accompaniment (2007), the second Bakla’s piece presented, too. Torquati also played Ivan Fedele’s Études boréales, Thomas Larcher’s Naunz, Matthias Pintscher’s Whirling Tissue of Light and Francesco Filidei’s Preludio e Filastrocca. The last two were given their Czech premiere at the concert.
23 October 2016, Besední dům, Brno
Exposition of New Music
Petr Bakla: First Movement and Variations (2012) – world premiere
piano: Emanuele Torquati