Vincenzo Maltempo - Piano Variations, Vol. 2 (Beethoven) (2020)

Vincenzo Maltempo is artistic personality finds an important place in the contemporary wide and diversified music scene after his massive recordings and recitals dedicated to Charles Valentin Alkan of which he is considered one of the most authoritative interpreter and connoisseur in the world. Since 2009, in fact, he recorded the most important Alkan works for the English label ‘PianoClassics’; this considerable work has attracted the attention of the most renowned international magazines such as Diapason, The Guardian, PianoNews, ClassicVoice and others where his recordings get the coveted ’5 Stars’. Andrew Clements (The Guardian) says about his playing: “Exhilarating, demonic, a real revelation!”, and Robert Nemececk (PianoNews) writes: “considering one of the greatest contemporary interpreters of this composer [Alkan] no other pianist as Maltempo has managed to dominate in a so well thought-out and orchestral way the enormous difficulties [of Alkan works]”. He recorded and played Alkan’s most important works and he is one of the very few interpreters who played the whole set of the “Douze études dans toutes les tons mineurs” Op. 39 in one single recital (Yokohama, November 2013). As a result of his continuous work of rediscovering and promoting the forgotten Alkan music, he was awarded with the honorary membership of the “Alkan Society” in London.

Vincenzo Maltempo is defined as a “thrillingly resourceful musician with formidable technique and intelligence” (Jeremy Lee), with a “sound like carved in marble” (PianoNews), his “phrasing so elegant, the never ostentatious virtuosity, his mastery of form and musical sense” (L’Osservatore Romano). Vincenzo is also praised by many contemporary great pianists. Francesco Libetta considers him as “a glorious example of Mediterranean pianist” and Alexander Lonquich writes about him as “a pianist/musician out of the ordinary who is able to use his natural virtuosity (so lucidly “expressionist”), that he improved attending the works of Liszt, for the discovery of a hidden Nineteenth century’ [...] He is also one of the only people that can do justice to the Alkan music and who seems to have no secrets for him. Maltempo generally tends to explore the extreme sides of a style. ‘ I’m not surprised that his latest CD dedicated to Schumann hit in the center. Rarely if ever I heard such a Humoreske so compelling and multifaceted at the same time […] No wonder certainly his dedication to the work of the transcriber of major orchestral scores […] And a last important thing: you still have the feeling that for him the instrument is a means and not an end for itself”. The famous music critic Bryce Morrison on Gramophone, enhances the flamboyant and colorful playing comparing it to Horowitz and Lorenzo Arruga, Italian music critic and writer, recognize in his “free and speaking phrasing, in his warm touch and in his loving attitude for the composers and the music” a deep liaison with the “old piano school”. In fact his discography, besides to Alkan, can count other recordings dedicated to Franz Liszt (Gramola, 2009), Robert Schumann (Piano-Classics 2014), and to the music for Violin and Piano by Michele Esposito (a less known Irish/Italian composer) with the violinist Carmelo Andriani (Brilliant Classics 2014). All of them are prized with the highest awards from the international press. Soon they will be released the 19 Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt and the 12 Trascendental Etudes by S. Lyapunov.

Vincenzo Maltempo international career sees him performing in the most important Festivals and theaters in Europe, America (Miami International Piano Festival), Mexico, Asia.

He regularly hold Masterclasses and he is invited as jury member in National and International Competitions.

His musical journey, began in a very early age spontaneously in his family, is heavily influenced by Salvatore Orlando which is pianist and teacher, pupil and friend of Sergio Fiorentino and after continues with Riccardo Risaliti who enriches it with important intellectual motivations. Vincenzo Maltempo lives in his birthplace, Benevento, where he collaborates with the “Orchestra Filarmonica di Benevento”, founded and conducted by Francesco Ivan Ciampa. He currently teaches at the Conservatory “Gesualdo da Venosa”, in Potenza, Italy.