Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Press cuttings from the premiere tour in 1998
This piece ought to enter the repertoire. Fifteen minutes of clever, economical, and extremely effective music - a hit! On the one hand, Bettina Skrzypczak's Piano Concerto ... lies within the traditions of the genre. The orchestration, the fascination of virtuosity, and the dialogue between soloist and orchestra all stem from the 19th century. One can even detect a three-part 'fast-slow-fast' layout. But essentially, everything displays an inexhaustible power of invention. In describing the form, the composer talks of composed chaos theory. In more conventional terms: 'improvisation', in the literal sense: 'unforeseeable' factors which appear from nowhere, and subsequently - with a delightful sense of release - prove to be organic and meaningful. The main generators of musical events are the timbres, sometimes thrown into the mix, sometimes changing subtley ... Massimiliano Damerini was the splendid soloist, and the Swiss Philharmonic Workshop under Mario Venzago did well by a rewarding work.
Michael Eidenbenz, Tages-Anzeiger Zürich, 30. 9. 1998
We heard a thirteen-minute concerto for piano and orchestra, which revealed great compositional qualities within a multi-facetted world of sounds (...) What the pianist had to cope with in the premiere of this work would normally require four hands. Massimiliano Damerini (...), with his bravura technique and his concentrated, ultra-refined playing, proved to be an ideal advocate for this work which, though all its outbursts and exhaustions, its lineations and diversifications, maintained a breath of adventurousness ...
Paul Schorno, Nordschweiz, 25.9.98
... thirteen minutes of immediately accessible music, both voluble and full of silence, delicately poetic and permeated by well-controlled violence.
Daniel Robellaz, La Tribune de Genève, 28.9.98