Etica, estetica. Il sentimento

This cd differs from its predecessors: it contains no original compositions standing alongside works by other composers around a single theme. Instead, I dedicate it entirely to Schumann – particularly opus 16, 26 and 28 – chosen for both biographical and aesthetic reasons. Schumann revealed to me for the first time the splendor and complexity of music and the pleasure of ever deeper exploration of sound and structure. From him I learned the power of imagery, the spark of an idea, the luxury of breathing the air of his time. My years at the L. Perosi Academie in Biella, the piano competitions, my first concerts – each of these memories is inseparably linked with Schumann, echoes of a past that surfaces now and then, yet is no longer mine. Opus 16, 26 and 28 – 16, 26 and 28 sketch a strikingly varied portrait of the composer: an almost epic sense of drama in Kreisleriana, sparkling brilliance in the Weener Carnaval and, in the Three Romances, a more narrative spirit. These notes do not repeat what scholars have long said about each piece; rather they sketch my relationship with them – what they have given me and what I have tried to give back in this recording. When I think of Kreisleriana, I think of my lessons with Aldo Ciccolini, who treated music as synesthesia, where sounds, colors, tastes and visions merge into story and myth. I still hear his advice about the sixth piece (B-flat major, Molto adagio): "Think of bagpipes; the tone should be slightly nasal." And I see the cheerful company at the end of the seventh piece, perhaps a little tipsy, spilling out into the cold night of Leipzig, with a stray sob between the chords. The dark urgency of the third (Molto agitato) and the eighth (Scherzando) once sparked my teenage imagination with forest, ravine and mystery. Yet Kreisleriana also confronted me with everyday challenges: an awkward tenth precisely where the music is most poignant; chasing impossibly fast tempi; reading a piano score as if it were an orchestral part and then experiencing it behind the keyboard. The piece has grown with me; each encounter changes us both. Schumann is no longer merely the romantic poet: he is the composer who takes refuge in Bach's form and balance. He has sharpened my taste, as a composer, for musical craftsmanship, and, as a performer, for the long term. I feel drawn to his harmonies, his architecture, his tempo, to the way he makes the piano speak with symphonic breadth. I have never been drawn to Schumann's psychological torment; it would be just as unfruitful as explaining Leopardi's pessimism by listing his ailments. Far richer is Schumann, the critic and man of letters, who has an eye for the artistic cross-currents of his time and is constantly in dialogue with Hoffmann and Heine. Das Haus Schumann, which I recently reread with great pleasure, offers a charming domestic atmosphere – but his deepest intimacy lies, I believe, in the music itself. Carnival is a familiar motif in both literature and music, and Schumann's Weener Carnaval has a distinctly different flavor than Op. 9. Op. 26 is in many ways less grand, certainly shorter, but all the more enigmatic to my ears. With its five movements it feels more like a sonata than a masked procession. I read it as a sparkling yet wistful retrospective of a vanished Vienna. Beneath the bubbling splendor of the Scherzino, the Finale and parts of the opening Allegro lies a deep melancholy that unfolds after the first two pages into a melody in g minor, where speech becomes song and verse. Many call it Eusebius' voice; I prefer to free the music from such labels, however enchanting they may be, for they can cloud the calm of an interpretation. Daily living with this score has taught me to set anecdotes aside. As a composer I too have used descriptive titles – Nenè Waltz, Tides, Echoes, Kinderliana – but those poetic indications mattered only at first; soon harmony and design became the true core of each piece. So it is, I think, with Schumann as well. The Three Romances are pieces I have recently studied and they give me the greatest freedom: urgent drama in the first, ecstatic tenderness in the second, and in the third a kaleidoscope of typically Schumannesque moods. They were once intended for another project with Bunte Blätter, Brahms' Variations op. 9 and other miniatures, but I am glad they stand here, in balance with Op. 16 and 26. A critic once suggested that Schumann and I were close relatives; I doubt it, even in purely stylistic terms. Yet he has always been a guiding light, a partner in dialogue, a guide in my musical growth. Through Schumann, music became an inexhaustible quest. I have always found his romanticism sincere, unsentimental and utterly authentic. That is why I have devoted an entire cd to him, with subtitles containing the three qualities that, in my opinion, best define the man and the composer: ethics, the aesthetic deed and the feeling that permeates his work and life. Maria Gabriella Mariani © 2025