Giorgio Parolini gives the best

The Milanese organist played the organ of the Cathedral.

Pieces known and less known were in the program last Sunday at the Cathedral for the second appointment of the Series of Organ Concerts of the Easter Period. Giorgio Parolini, this is the guest’s name, began with the difficult Prelude and Fugue in C minor (BWV 546) by Johann Sebastian Bach, showing from the beginning his competence in organ matters. The Italian organist has spread, in the huge but perfectly right environment, a wonderful sound, full of transparence, both during the execution of the Prelude, with its extraordinaries timbres, and during the filigreed Fugue, whose theme, gently fluent, flowed from his hands. Before this execution, Bach’s elaboration of the Choral « These are the Ten Holy Commandments » was kept apart. Gifted with all the symbolical elements, the player delivered to us an interpretation which left, for its clearness, nothing more to wish for, as once did Moses’ Tables of the Law, engraved on stone. After Bach, Giorgio Parolini, born in 1971 and since 1999 titular organist of the Basilica of St. Euphemia in Milan, proposed unknown music to the wide public. Music from his country, like Ottorino Respighi’s Bach – Huldigung (a Prelude on a Choral of the Thomaskantor) or Marco Enrico Bossi’s high – sounding Alleluja, with its characteristic theme of four notes. Giorgio Parolini completed his mastery of the instrument in Switzerland. At the Conservatory of Music of Geneva, in fact, Lionel Rogg was one of his authoritative teachers. And it’s the wintry image of the town which inspired Rogg for his « Evocation »: a fresco of notes, both quiet at the beginning and at the end, with a rich central part in liveliness. This piece gave rise to the growing series of feelings of the interpreter, who reached the full maturity during the execution of the serene Organ Sonata by Julius Reubke. It is based upon the 94th Psalm: dramatic verses of a revengeful God, but at the same time generous and loving, portrayed by the interpreter with faithful plasticity. For doing this it was necessary a perfect instrumental technique, gifted with all the pianistic means. Giorgio Parolini gave the best.
Christoph Schulte im Walde

From « Westfälische Nachrichten », May the 1st, 2001