After his early training, Ruben began performing publicly at age ten in the main hall of the “Buzzolla” Conservatory in Adria and has since played for several music associations (including Bologna’s Circolo Culturale Lirico, Musica a Marfisa d’Este in Ferrara, Malipiero Concerts in Asolo, and Villa Molinari Pradelli in Bologna). The legend of the child prodigy lives on in the program he will present tonight at 9:15 p.m. for the Circolo della Musica’s 35th season, performing at the Goethe-Zentrum/Alliance Française, Via de Marchi 4 (tickets €10, Endas membership required).

The recital will be a journey through keyboard compositions from the 18th and 19th centuries, from Scarlatti to Chopin, with key works by Bach and Mozart. From Domenico Scarlatti, the prince of harpsichordists, he will play the Sonata in D minor, K. 9—nicknamed the “Pastorale”—originally included in the 1738 collection Thirty Exercises for Harpsichord, a piece both whimsical and melancholic, typical of this keyboard virtuoso.

Next come two celebrated works by Johann Sebastian Bach: first the Prelude and Fugue No. 5 from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, composed “for the use and benefit of musical youth eager to learn, and also for the pastime of those already skilled.” Then the second of the English Suites, in A minor, a series of movements based on dances and perhaps written in homage to an English nobleman.

The young phenomenon will then tackle music by Europe’s most famous child prodigy, Mozart, performing the Sonata K. 570, composed in one of the composer’s final years and published posthumously—a simple, elegant three-movement work.

Ruben will conclude by taking on the “prince of pianists,” Chopin, with the Waltz in E minor, Op. 34 No. 2, described by one writer as “a dance to be danced in the innermost heart,” revealing a wistful Chopin in cheerful Vienna. The concert closes with Chopin’s Bolero, Op. 19—music more Spanish than Polish, yet somehow more Polish than a Spanish bolero. An evening not to be missed.

Massimo Marino
Corriere di Bologna
April 6, 2019