Michele Garzo: From Romantic Tragedy to Elation: Love Stories as told by Chopin & Liszt in Review
Michele Garzo, piano
St. John’s in the Village, New York, NY
September 26, 2026
This evening’s performance featured Italian pianist Michele Garzo at a familiar downtown venue in Manhattan, St. John’s in the Village. After reading the biography of the performer in the event advertisement, I was intrigued to hear this “former prodigy” who performs with “fearless technique with deep poetic insight.”
Tonight’s program certainly offered ample opportunity to highlight these qualities in some of the piano repertoire’s most beloved and demanding works: the four Ballades by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Sonata in B Minor & Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 by Franz Liszt (1811-1886). The concert titled “From Romantic Tragedy to Elation: Love Stories as told by Chopin or Liszt” also provided a unique context. In recent years, it has become increasingly fashionable to give recitals thematic titles such as this, creating a narrative connection among the works and, ideally, send the listener on a kind of journey. It is also not a bad marketing strategy. I was particularly interested to see how the performer would connect these four monumental Ballades, the Sonata and the Rhapsody through the idea of “love stories.”
The recital began with Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. The elusive Lento opening is always a challenge for pianists- how does one interpret such a mysterious and intangible beginning? Mr. Garzo’s interpretive choice verged on ignoring the Lento marking altogether. The work began with a hurried broken-chord figuration, not really setting the tone for what followed. The main theme felt similarly rushed and distorted, while the rapid transitional passages that so dramatically propel the music into subsequent themes lacked definition and clarity.
Unfortunately, there was little in the performance that conveyed any adherence to Chopin’s markings or to the poetic ethos of the work. Much, if not all, of the performance remained at a consistently loud dynamic, with little sense of nuance, intimacy, or poetry. This was particularly puzzling, as Mr. Garzo is clearly capable of learning and memorizing technically demanding repertoire. Yet there seemed to be insufficient attention paid to the actual sound emerging from the instrument and to the expressive possibilities contained within the score. The famously bombastic and heroic coda should bring the Ballade to an overwhelming culmination. Tonight, it became a muddled and hurried version of its former self, sacrificing grandeur and dramatic impact for sheer velocity.
The Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 fared no better. The atmospheric opening was overpedaled and rushed, with little dynamic nuance. As a result, the explosive contrasting section arrived with surprisingly little impact. Once again, this performance felt undifferentiated, with few of the contrasts that give the work its extraordinary dramatic trajectory. I was particularly surprised by the speed at which the Ballade was played. Rather than allowing its drama to unfold naturally, Mr. Garzo seemed intent on moving through the music as quickly as possible, diminishing much of the tension and atmosphere that make the work so impactful.
By this point, I found myself wondering just how quickly the Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 47 would pass by. Once again, Mr. Garzo communicated few of the qualities one so readily associates with Chopin- lyricism, elegance, subtlety, and a sense of poetic freedom. Mr. Garzo, however, appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself!
Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 is one of the piano repertoire’s most cherished works, one that pianists revere and collectively regard as a remarkable achievement of compositional craftsmanship. Mr. Garzo did approach the opening theme with some sensitivity, although the persistent lack of alignment between the bass and upper voices raised the question of whether this was an intentional stylistic choice. Beyond these opening moments, however, the performance struggled to convey the work’s extraordinary architecture. Much of the passagework was jumbled, obscuring the remarkable compositional process. The progressive variation that gives the Ballade its sense of inevitable growth and intensifying drama was largely lost. Unfortunately, the concluding coda was unsuccessful, both musically and technically.
The second half of the recital began with Franz Liszt’s monumental Sonata in B minor. This behemoth of a work is a formidable undertaking for even the most skilled and adventurous pianists, and Mr. Garzo was certainly willing to take on the challenge. Although the opening successfully conveyed a sense of misterioso, the notes not being together were far too distracting.
Many of the issues heard in the first half of the recital persisted here: the prevailing dynamic seemed to range from loud, to louder, to loudest. Without sufficient attention to sound production, voicing, and dynamic contrast, even the most dramatic music can eventually lose its hold on the listener. Liszt’s music is often characterized as bombastic and overtly virtuosic, but the Sonata is also an extraordinarily sophisticated and tightly constructed work. Interpretive freedom can be compelling, but when liberties and extremes of tempo begin to obscure the underlying architecture, the coherence of the work itself is compromised. The final fugue started off promisingly, but Mr. Garzo let it get so out of control, it wasn’t intelligible by the end.
The final work on the program was Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6. This performance did have some effective moments, particularly in the octave passages, which Mr. Garzo played with lightness and, at times, considerable brilliance. As the piece progressed, unexpected accents began to appear throughout the texture, without any relationship to the phrasing or musical direction of the work. By the end, the performance succumbed to many of the same issues that had characterized the rest of the recital. As the tempo and technical demands intensified, the playing became increasingly tangled and indistinct.
The encore was the Adagio from J.S. Bach’s Concerto after Marcello. Although there were fleeting hints of beauty in the opening, the performance gradually evolved into an aggressive caricature of this deeply expressive aria. What might have offered a moment of repose after such an intensely virtuosic program instead suffered from the same lack of restraint and attention to detail that had characterized much of the evening.
By the end of the evening, I had nearly forgotten the recital’s title, “From Romantic Tragedy to Elation: Love Stories as Told by Chopin or Liszt.” While the program certainly took us on a journey, I’m not sure we ever quite arrived at the promised elation.
