By Lyn Bronson

Yesterday afternoon on the stage of the Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville, John Orlando, Artistic Director of Cabrillo College’s Distinguished Artists Concert & Lecture Series, proudly unveiled the new Carole Holdaway Steinway concert grand that had just arrived in great fanfare a few days previously from the Steinway factory in New York City. The acquisition of this fine concert piano represented several years of planning and soliciting donors, plus the efforts of Orlando and a group of advisors to scout out and select the perfect piano at the Steinway factory.

To celebrate this important event, pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Silver Medalist at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth was on hand to play the inaugural recital on this fine new instrument. Pompa-Baldi’s program was as large as it was varied and consisted of such blockbusters as Czerny’s La Ricordanza Variations, Edvard Grieg’s Sonata in E Minor, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne and Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor — all of which were preceded by Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat Major K.333.

A few years ago I attended a piano recital at a university where a pianist sat down at the piano in the beginning of the concert, turned to the audience and said, “You people in the first several rows may want to move further back, because I play very loud.” Accordingly, many of us did move a few rows back, but, no matter how far away we moved, the relentless banging remained painful to our ears and to our musical sensibilities. During the first half of Pompa-Baldi’s recital we were sitting in the sixth row and found the sound similarly overwhelming — a gentleman seated two seats away from us was heard to comment that he didn’t need his hearing aid turned on, so loud was the sound. Later we moved to the rear of the hall which afforded some improvement, but not much.

Antonio Pompa-Baldi is a fine pianist with a virtuoso technique of the highest order, but his preoccupation with technique resulted in a kind of over playing that affected almost all of his performances on this program. I say “almost all of his performances,” because there was some truly tender and lovely playing in the slow movement of the Grieg Sonata and in the D-flat Major section of the Marche funèbre in the Chopin Sonata. An even greater indication of his ability to play with extraordinary sensitivity and beauty was revealed in his encores, two Preludes by Scriabin, and you will never hear these two miniatures played more gorgeously. What is happening here? Why would such a naturally gifted pianist as Mr. Pompa-Baldi feel that it is advantageous to play as loud and fast as possible? Is Mr. Pompa-Baldi unaware that the louder he bangs, the harsher and uglier the sound becomes?

In his introduction, John Orlando mentioned that Pompa-Baldi performs approximately 100 recitals and 25 concerto engagements each year, thus either his playing finds favor among many, or this kind of aggressive playing is becoming ever more accepted as the norm. That this was not always so can be verified by listening to recorded performances by great pianists of the past such as Rachmaninoff, Moisiwitsch, Lhevinne, Gieseking, Cortot, Lipatti, and many other distinguished artists who never produced an ugly sound.

The bottom line is that this concert was ultimately unsatisfying. Artur Schnabel once said that as performers we are “tour guides,” and we must be careful never to get in the way of the view. He was implying here that as soon as you begin to show off, the music immediately suffers. The irony is that it didn’t need to be so, because Mr. Pompa-Baldi has all the potential of a great artist, and proved several times during this concert that when he wants to (as in the two encores), he can produce sensitive playing that truly bewitches you and moves you to tears.

Now, what about the new Steinway concert grand? When it was played softly and moderately loud it was very beautiful indeed, but when pounded the sound became raucous and unfocussed. Its most beautiful feature was noticed on those few occasions when no matter how softly Pompa-Baldi played pianissimo, the sound had a lovely intensity and carrying power. Now, that is an indication of a great piano!