Francesco Tristano Schlimé – Prokofiev: Piano Concertos – Schlimé: Three Improvisations (2006/2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Francesco Tristano Schlimé – Prokofiev: Piano Concertos – Schlimé: Three Improvisations (2006/2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:14 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PENTATONE

At 25, pianist Francesco Tristano Schlimé carries an impressive-looking artistic resumé with credits that stretch beyond the so-called “standard rep” and into composition, new music, and improvisation. He’s also a pupil of Mikhail Pletnev, who lends both podium support and his trusty Russian National Orchestra in the Ravel and Prokofiev performances in hand. The results are decidedly uneven, to put it kindly. Where’s the sparkle and rhythmic verve we usually expect from the Ravel G major’s first movement? Not here. The pianist’s enervated distension of slower, lyrical passages creates awkward transitions back into the faster basic tempos, while the recessed, mushy orchestral image yields weird balances (harps all over the place, winds on another planet).

Not that you’d care, since the first-chair soloists are about as lackluster as the piano player (the first trumpet, especially). All parties evidently chowed down quaalude guacamole before sleepwalking through the slow movement, one foot dragging in front of the other, with no direction home. Its 11-minute duration (the movement usually requires nine) feels like 11 hours. The third movement’s introductory chords have the impact of an overcooked, underspiced noodle, and Schlimé responds by upping the tempo–and who can blame him? To his credit, Schlimé gives the syncopated accents and jazzy runs their due, while Pletnev and company basically phone it in.

Tracklist:
1-1. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – I. Allegramente (09:40)
1-2. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – II. Adagio assai (11:21)
1-3. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – III. Presto (04:19)
1-4. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – I. Allegro con brio (05:15)
1-5. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – II. Moderato ben accentuato (04:14)
1-6. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – III. Toccata – Allegro con fuoco (02:03)
1-7. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – IV. Larghetto (07:56)
1-8. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – V. Vivo (05:41)
1-9. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – Reveal (07:18)
1-10. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – Progression (02:11)
1-11. Francesco Tristano Schlimé – Return (05:12)

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