Paolo Baccianella's performance profile

Although Paolo Baccianella considers the organ to be his main instrument, his brilliant mastery of the piano also allows him to expand the instrumental organicism of his performances within the framework of a chosen theme - for example, in the context of Bach's Organ Concertos, to include a performance of one of his keyboard orchestral works of the same genre; or - in a contrasting juxtaposition of Mozart's creative faces - to offer listeners both the composer's organ and piano-orchestral works; or, as in the case of Franck, to combine them in a single work. 
     Such thematic projects are carried out in collaboration with Elena Knizhnikova-Semenova (musicologist, pianist, program author, presenter, second piano performer). An approach allows not only to enrich the content aspect of the performance, but also to optimize its unfolding in terms of dynamic and communicative qualities. 

Paolo Baccianella's concert programs for solo organ are based on a deep understanding of the instrument and its specificity in different European national traditions. His area of preference is works by the German and French organ schools, but Italian and English organists are not neglected either. 
     The basic basis of P.B.'s repertoire for solo organ is primarily the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries, as well as the development of Bach's traditions in the work of composers of subsequent generations - Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt and Roibke.  A superb sense of musical form allows the Italian musician to build the dramaturgy of compositions of various scales - from “miniatures” to large-scale structures - with the same degree of conviction. 
     Paolo Baccianella's interpretations of Bach's choral preludes - unique creations in the field of “miniature” - achieve such a degree of spiritual concentration and focus, leading into the vertical - spiritual dimension, that any notions of the “real” size of the composition and its duration in physical time clearly lose meaning here.  

     The mastery of large form, comparable in Bach's cycles to the scale of grand Baroque frescoes, diptychs or triptychs in painting, makes itself felt in Paolo Baccianella's interpretations as the ability to maintain the integrity of the composition while engaging with its processual aspects in such significant works as, for example, Passacaglia in C minor, Prelude and Fugue in E minor, Prelude and Fugue in B minor, Prelude and Fugue in G major, Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Toccata and Fugue “dorica” in D minor, Toccata and Fugue in F major, Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, etc. д.  
     As a separate repertoire branch of this trend it is possible to single out Bach's transcriptions of orchestral concertos (mainly based on works by Italian composers, including Vivaldi), which form an authentic part of the organ repertoire. 

     In Paolo Baccianella's organ interpretations, the musician's predilection for the careful development of register, which, as is well known, expresses the very essence of the organ's specificity and distinguishes it from other areas of musical instrumentalism. Deep attention to timbre colorfulness, the search for register combinations, and subtle listening to the delicacies of various timbre layers are qualities that form the most important aspect of Paolo Baccianella's organ interpretations, explaining his preference for the use of “large” organs - the German “classical” and especially the French Romantic. 

     Paolo Baccianella's masterful use of the rich timbre palette of this organ allows him to highlight the colorfulness and timbre specificity of images characteristic of French aesthetics. But in addition to the colorful and hedonistic component, the musician is attracted by the possibilities of timbre in terms of building the dramaturgical relief of compositions, which gives a special meaningfulness to the reading of organ scores by Franck, the founder of the French Romantic organ symphonism, and a whole host of brilliant successors - Widor, Vierne, Guilmant, Dubois, Bellaire, Gigoux, Messiaen and Poulenc.  

     The interest in the orchestral qualities of the organ naturally leads to the inclusion of works for organ and orchestra in Paolo Baccianella's repertoire.   Following the works expected in this field, such as Handel's or Poulenc's Concerti, Adagio T. Albinoni - R. Giazzotto, the repertoire of Paolo Baccianella includes works for organ and orchestra. Giazzotto, the organist's repertoire in recent years has included a whole series of “exclusive” new organ-orchestral works with the organ soloist specially created for his performances.   They are the result of Paolo Baccianella's creative collaboration with the Russian Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra of Moscow and its conductor, Sergei Tararin, who also wrote and arranged a number of organ-orchestral suites.   

     Paolo Baccianella is also attracted by his bold experiments in using the organ's capabilities in transcriptions of opera and symphonic music. The musician manages to convey on the organ the brilliance, dynamism, fullness and volume of orchestral sound, for example, in the transcription of Beethoven's famous Fifth Symphony, to use the resources of the organ to reflect the orchestral differences of Rossini's music (overtures to the operas The Soroka the Thief, “Wagner (episodes from Die Walküre), Prokofiev (march from the opera The Love for Three Oranges), to reproduce on the organ the expressiveness of the vocal cantilena of Verdi's operas (Vespers in Sicily) and Wagner's operas (Tannhäuser).                                                      

     A special part of the concert repertoire, which complements the organ evenings, consists of works for piano and orchestra. The solo parts of Johann Sebastian Bach's keyboard concertos - Concerto in D Minor for Clavier and Orchestra BWV 1052 and Concerto in D Major for Clavier and Orchestra BWV 1054 - played brilliantly by Paolo Baccianella belong to this area. The audience also showed considerable interest in the performance of Bach's double concertos for two solo claviers (piano) and orchestra - Concerto No. 1 in C minor BWV 1060, Concerto No. 2 in C major BWV 1061, Concerto No. 3 in C minor BWV 1062 - performed together with Elena Knizhnikova-Semenova.