Last July at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, Davide
Amodio (a lecturer in string ensemble playing at the Conservatory of
Trieste), Edoardo Torbianelli (professor of fortepiano at the Schola
Cantorum, Basilea), and Franck Bernède (professor of cello and
musicology at the University of Taipei), made a very unusual recording
of a previously unrecorded composition by Ludwig van Beethoven. Highly
innovative recording techniques were used to capture the sounds of
period instruments: a fortepiano from 1823, identical to the instrument
owned by Beethoven, a perfectly intact Teckler cello, and a Pique
violin from 1793, with bare gut strings and classical bows, all played
using period performing techniques (violin with no chin or shoulder
pads, cello with no endpin). The great variety of the fortepiano
harmonics create balances unimaginable for a modern piano as the trio
explores the world of the infinitely soft with extremely delicate
touches (Beethoven was famously one of the first to introduce “ppp”)
but also breaks out into startlingly energetic fortissimi. The overall
effect is thus always tight and invigorating. Each instrument dominates
its own range with extreme ease. The pieces played here (the original
transcriptions for trio of quartets I, II and IV, opus 18) provided a
unique opportunity to perform works that are both well-known but
previously unperformed in this form, thus free of influences and
previous interpretations. The CD will be released with the magazine
Amadeus in autumn 2007.

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e-mail: ufficio.editoriale@cini.it