Various Composers - Casta Diva (Vanessa Benelli Mosell)

Information

1. Gioachino Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia: Largo al factotum (transcr. Ginzburg)
2. Sigismond Thalberg - L'art du chant appliqué au piano, Op. 70: 119. Casta diva, de l'opéra "Norma" (after Bellini)
3. Franz Liszt - Concert Paraphrase on Rigoletto, S. 434 (after G. Verdi)
4. Frédéric Chopin - Hexaméron: Variation No. 6, B. 113
5. Franz Liszt - Réminiscences de Norma, S. 394 (after V. Bellini)
6. Giacomo Puccini - La bohème: Che gelida manina (arr. Carignani)
7. Ferruccio Busoni - Elegien, BV 249: 4. Turandots Frauengemach
8. Sigismond Thalberg - L'art du chant appliqué au piano, Op. 70: 1. Quatuor de l'opéra "I puritani" (after Bellini)
9. Franz Liszt - Réminiscences de Lucia di Lammermoor, S. 397 (after Donizetti)
10. Giacomo Puccini - La bohème: Quando me'n vo' (arr. Carignani)
11. Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly: Coro a bocca chiusa (transcr. Wittgenstein)
12. Gioachino Rossini - William Tell: Overture (transcr. Liszt)

Vanessa Benelli Mosell, piano

Date: 2020

Label: Decca Italy

https://www.universalmusic.it/musica-classica/album/casta-diva_34277765288/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

Looking back through the Gramophone archive, I see that this gifted Italian pianist (b1987) has been appearing on and off in these pages for the past decade. She has ranged far and wide on disc, from Haydn and Rachmaninov to Stockhausen (whose music she studied with him) and the contemporary French composer Karol Beffa. Somehow, she has thus far escaped my attention.

My impression after a first hearing was rather like a Chinese meal: well prepared, delicious and filling – yet half an hour later you’re hungry again. I was less inclined to carp after a second hearing. It is, after all, a cannily chosen, well-balanced selection (recorded mid-pandemic, incidentally, in Prato, Tuscany). Mosell is blessed with a fantastic mechanical fluency – most pianists would give their eye teeth for fingers like hers – and tonally alluring in the less virtuoso numbers such as Thalberg’s transcription of ‘Casta diva’ (the second time this has come my way recently) and – a first for me – in Paul Wittgenstein’s dainty arrangement for left hand alone of the Sailors’ Chorus from Madama Butterfly.

Anyone coming to these transcriptions for the first time could not help but be impressed. And rightly so. It is when you compare these performances with certain others that you realise how much more there is to be had musically. Take either of Marc-André Hamelin’s recordings of the Réminiscences de Norma (Music & Arts, 1992; Hyperion, 10/20), with their super-refined passagework and variety of touch and tone, performances that have you on the edge of your seat and come to conclusions that send shivers up the spine. The keyboard simply roars. Then there’s Jorge Bolet in the mighty Lucia di Lammermoor transcription (Marston, 7/15), bringing a depth and majesty that so far elude the talented Mosell. And she comes off a spirited but definite second best to Jean-Yves Thibaudet in the Rigoletto Paraphrase (Decca, 2/94), whose jeu perlé runs above the main theme are staggeringly accomplished before dispatching the final blaze of octaves with thrilling drama.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/instrumental/casta-diva-vanessa-benelli-mosell/

https://pianodao.com/2021/01/24/vanessa-benelli-mosell-casta-diva/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vanessa Benelli Mosell (born 15 November 1987 in Prato, Tuscany) is an Italian pianist and conductor. She studied with Franco Scala in Imola, Mikhail Voskresensky at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music in London. In addition to her piano studies, she went on studying violin, singing, score reading, composition, and conducting. Benelli Mosell is internationally renowned for her performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Klavierstücke. She has given concerts and solo recitals all over Europe, as well as in the US and Asia. She now has eight releases for Decca.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Benelli_Mosell

https://www.vanessabenellimosell.com/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!