Interview: «improvisation is the truest part of me»

From Colin Clarke's conversation with Maria Gabriella Mariani about Pour jouer – Virtuoso Piano Works, published in Fanfare, Issue 42:2 (Nov/Dec 2018). A selection of passages; the complete interview, in the original English and in Italian translation, is attached as a PDF.

The Neapolitan School and Vincenzo Vitale

The Neapolitan School had an important role for my development. For this reason, I will always be grateful to Maestro Vincenzo Vitale, because he created in my country a technique that gave reliability of performance, above all from the technical point of view. It is clear that technique is not everything, but it is a necessary means on which to build one's own performance. Today I have reviewed many aspects of what I learned; others I integrated. I believe that the same thing happens to many musicians, when they become more aware of themselves and more autonomous.

Three years with Aldo Ciccolini

I spent three years of intense and exciting study with Ciccolini starting from the age of 19. Many students criticized him because his approach was global: Music for him was culture, emotion. I liked this very much because it left me free to investigate, to look for and make my own experiences; then together we discussed it. Ciccolini loved French composers, yet I studied above all German musical literature with him. In those years I discovered the fingering applied to the study of sound, the reasoned use of the pedal, above all the pleasure of setting up a work of aesthetic-cultural research. Those three years were productive and ended with an advanced graduation and the judgment "Excellent"; but then it was right to make my own way, always remembering his teaching. When I saw him again in 2010, a different relationship was created: I dedicated Sonata Pour Jouer to him. When I played it in 2014, he was in the hall.

The hologram as a form

Each variation is a layer on which another one is inserted. Listening to them all together they are a single piece, just like the surface of a smooth plate on which the laser was impressed. But inside there are many layers, one inside the other. Also, for this reason, in the Finale I wanted to recall all the themes, like so many characters who greet their audience after their slice of "variation-performance."

Improvisation

It is an improvisation, a unique piece that I will never play again, because each time is different, without any base, a broken clock that always marks that exact time but only lives on the disc. Last night I played Ologramma again in concert, and the audience heard another improvisation, not preconceived. Even in the recording I tried four improvisations: In the end I chose the shortest, because the others were too long. It is not a merit; it is a language. Even now when I'm interacting with you I'm improvising, only I do it with another language. Improvisation is the truest part of me; it's a way to "converse" with my audience.

I cannot prepare my improvisations; it would bother me, it would seem like a foreign body. You know, maybe the explanation of all this is to be found in my approach to music. My family did not know music, but our neighbor had an old piano. When my mother went to visit her, I was spending hours with that piano; I carried my dolls with me and together we were looking for all the combinations of sounds. I was three or four years old. When my mother thought of making me study music my first teacher at the first lesson asked me: "What can you do?" I replied: "A little waltz." She said: "Let me listen to it." And I played this … little waltz. Finally, she told me: "Well, repeat it with your fingers bent." "I also know other songs," I added, but she forbade me to play without a score. At that time I did not know the notes, but I knew the sounds, and I enjoyed creating connections between them.

Recording what you do not know yet

It's true: It's a unique piece! It could not be otherwise, as you say. You cannot correct what you do not know yet. Every impromptu piece has its own atmosphere, its own coherence. It is a strange process; in a certain sense you do not think about what you are playing, and so you are not responsible for what comes out. It is like someone else is playing a piece for you; he is dedicating it to you, and you are listening to it for the first time. You do not know it, you live, you breathe in harmony with what you listen to, and even if you want to anticipate some things, they are just emotions, harmonies—music is too fast for thought to reach it. You cannot travel back and forth in the piece, you can only live it, note by note.

Thinking orchestrally

Absolutely, this is not a piano reduction from a symphony, nor a piano composition that can become orchestral. When I compose pieces for solo piano, I hardly ever think of piano alone; I always think of composing for a large orchestra. I would really like to be able to make my piano compositions orchestral, but this is very complicated because, although the piano is a complete instrument, it is still a solo instrument with its limits, compared to a real orchestra with many instruments with different timbres. For this reason it is very difficult to bring back into the pianistic writing the sound and contrapuntal masses of a composition designed for orchestra, and it is precisely for these reasons that being able to play my pieces is sometimes very complicated, because you need to make leaps and dizzying flights from an extreme at the other end of the keyboard.