Time honoured tradition has it that the pianist in a song recital plays the supporting role, hence the slightly derogatory term “accompanist”. Someone forgot to share that script with Giuseppe Vaccaro – or perhaps it lay among the scattered sheaves of music threatening to spill from Wigmore Hall's Steinway – as he took more than his fair share of the limelight from excellent Italian baritone Simone Piazzola. Vaccaro's contributions made this one of the most entertaining Rosenblatt Recitals in recent memory, if not always for the right reasons.
Is it the accompanist's role to keep the star singer waiting? I'm not sure quite how often Vaccaro and Piazzola have performed together, but their platform etiquette looked unrehearsed, the pianist bounding on stage to take a solo bow, while the baritone lurked, comically peering through from the green room, awaiting a pregnant pause for his turn to arrive. Vaccaro's scores weren't remotely organised, causing several stern baritone stares as he waited to commence the next song or aria.
The evening’s two flashiest performances came from Vaccaro alone. Ironically, having dutifully ploughed through pages of banal rum-ti-tum Tosti and bel canto accompaniments from sheet music, he performed a couple of Liszt showstoppers without the aid of a safety net, where scores may have helped him play more of the right notes in the right order. However, the Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 in C sharp minor (the one everybody knows) was rip-roaringly fun, while the Rigoletto Paraphrase saw Vaccaro, crouching at the keyboard, virtually play out all four roles in Verdi’s famous quartet, Piazzola’s services as the hunchback jester surplus to requirements.