Francesco Piemontesi
GEN
MARTHA ARGERICH
“I am deeply impressed by his playing. He is at once a passionate and intelligent musician who conveys a deep interior world. His love for music is coupled with great honesty, as Mr. Piemontesi always seems to be striving for truth in his musical interpretations. I think he is a wonderful musician”

HEINRICH SCHIFF
"Francesco Piemontesi is a wonderful pianist, a highly sensitive musician and a brilliant technician. With his exceptional skills one can be sure that he will have a brilliant future."

CHRISTOPH POPPEN
"One of the most sensitive pinanists of the younger generation"

FonoForum 4/2008
The third prize winner of the renowned Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels was no less impressive. From the beginning he played Mozart's B flat Sonata with boundless energy and understanding of rhetoric. Piemontesi chose to comtinue the program with Beethoven's late piano sonata in A flat major, opus 110, which presents several technical difficulties in both slow movements and in the final fugue. And what command Piemontesi displayed, how impressive his singing tone right at the beginning of the sonata. After the interval three Preludes of Debussy, glorious play of colur,quiet and thoughtful brooding juxtaposed against powerful explosions of sound. Then three dances from Stravinsky's Firebird, which Piemontesi executed with not only strictness of form, but also with picturesque, declamatory pianism. On his birthday gave himself and his listeners the most beautiful gift. Without a doubt, a happy choice by the direction of the Festival. 

Nord-Rhein-Zeitung NRZ, 10.07.2007 | Michael-Georg Müller
Piemontesi left an immaculate impression. His satin-like touch in Mozart's third B flat sonata created a light and brilliant flow. He approaches the demanding first movement of Beethoven's A flat sonata with restraint and lightness, reminiscent of Mozart; he convinces the listener in the forward-driving chordal passages of the fast movements by his pianistic mastery. Similarly virtuosic and rhymthic, he mastered Stravinsk'y Three Dances from The Firebird. 

Westdeutsche Zeitung WZ, 09.07.2007 | Jan Roxin
Piemontesi sweeps through hair-raising Stravinsky transcripitions, but is above all a poet of the piano. He is gifted with the ability of keeping Mozart's music in proportion, which occurs seemingly without delilberation, without cutting agression, without unnatural sweetness, without empty effects of sound. He allowed Beethoven's late A flat sonata to develop as though sung, even in the ascerbic Allegro molto he avoided any hardness of sound. Wonderfully timed chords in the opening movement, intimate cantabile in the Adagio. His Beethoven is informed by an inner strength and seriousness which cannot be learned.
 
Rehinische Post, 09.07.2007 | Regine Mü
With musical maturity, virtuosic brillance, enormous understanding of style of a broad repertoire and intellectual penetration, which these days are often the last requirements of quality. He bagan courageously: Mozart's fragile B flat sonata was played with discipined sound, sense of underlying meaning, and a feeling for the tempo proportions. With Beethoven's penultimate sonata in A flat, opus 110, he took on the holy of holies and convinced with the clearest transparency, without reducing the speculative/utopian and desperate vanity of late Beethoven. Glorious was the dying Arioso Dolente, dizzying the Fugue-Finale. Then after the interval pure magic with three preludes of Debussy and a furious demonstration of pianistic command in Stravinsky's Dances from The Firebird.

LA LIBRE Belgique, 16.6.2007 | Nicolas Blanmont
Plus que jamais dandy, élégamment négligé, très zen aussi, Francesco Piemontesi souligne la dimension jazz de l'allegremente initial Assez rapide dans l'adagio, plus rêveur que grave, il conclut par un presto léger et fantasque. Chez lui, la libération du stress se traduit par une précision sans faille, mais la musicalité qu'on avait tant admirée reste intacte. [Ravel Piano Concerto]
Martine D. Mergeay 18.5.2007
C'est le Suisse Francesco Piemontesi, 23 ans, qui ouvre la séance avec le concerto n°17, mené les yeux dans les yeux avec l'orchestre : toucher rond et clair, simplicité, netteté des articulations, dans l'allegro initial, son jeu raffiné sonne très XVIIIe. Sublime conduite de l'andante, pourtant très découvert, à la Haydn, et allegretto mesuré jusqu'à l'arrivée du presto final, au caractère bouffe, éclatant d'énergie et de brio. Le caractère classique de Mozart porté à son sommet, du grand art. [Mozart Piano Concerto]
Martine D. Mergeay 15.5.2007
Dans son interprétation, la sonate op. 110 de Beethoven est de loin plus classique que romantique, toute de clarté et de raffinement, avec une belle intériorité, et le très nocturne op. 12 de Schumann, révélateur de l'intelligence et de l'inspiration du Tessinois, restera sombre, comme enfoui, ou alors fugitivement survolé.