La Repubblica
Pietro De Maria: revolutionary Chopin, far from the drawing rooms and antique taste
De Maria has taken out the sugar without losing the sweetness. He emphasizes the crystalline melodiousness of operatic matrix without forgetting that sometimes it is sustained by an aggregation of unconventional chords.Gone is the time when Chopin was for sentimental girls and for elderly ladies nostalgic for the amorous heartbeats of their youth. No more is Chopin a soundtrack for the drawing room: damask, brocade, knick-knacks in more or less bad taste, candelabras, redingotes and daguerreotypes that no longer concern him. In the twentieth century he, the most romantic of composers, has been gradually freed from the image that his nineteenth century contemporaries have given us, poor fellow, and unfortunate as well, died of consumption when he was not yet forty (his lover George Sand used to call him affectionately “my little corpse” in private), and then his music, so charming and catchy. Today this Fryderyk Chopin no longer exists. For half a century now, musicians have been trying to give a less naïve interpretation of his works. For the Polish composer was not merely a creator of lovely melodies, but a revolutionary in matters of harmony. The pianist Pietro De Maria – Venetian by birth, residing in Prato, teacher at the Scuola di Fiesole – is the latest to offer a more objective picture of Chopin. Which means multi-faceted, not aloof.
De Maria has taken out the sugar without losing the sweetness. He emphasizes the crystalline melodiousness of operatic matrix without forgetting that sometimes it is sustained by an aggregation of unconventional chords. In the past few years he has played Chopin’s complete works in concert halls, in Florence for the Amici della Musica, and now he has completed his recording of them: nine installments, the last of which is a box of three CDs with the 58 mazurkas plus the Fantasie, the Berceuse, the Barcarolle, the Bolero, and the four Rondeaux.
The Mazurkas show that, in spite of his having moved to Paris, Chopin’s feet were firmly planted on his native soil, and the echo of the untuned country orchestras that accompanied the dances still ran incessantly through his mind.
De Maria has taken out the sugar without losing the sweetness. He emphasizes the crystalline melodiousness of operatic matrix without forgetting that sometimes it is sustained by an aggregation of unconventional chords.Gone is the time when Chopin was for sentimental girls and for elderly ladies nostalgic for the amorous heartbeats of their youth. No more is Chopin a soundtrack for the drawing room: damask, brocade, knick-knacks in more or less bad taste, candelabras, redingotes and daguerreotypes that no longer concern him. In the twentieth century he, the most romantic of composers, has been gradually freed from the image that his nineteenth century contemporaries have given us, poor fellow, and unfortunate as well, died of consumption when he was not yet forty (his lover George Sand used to call him affectionately “my little corpse” in private), and then his music, so charming and catchy. Today this Fryderyk Chopin no longer exists. For half a century now, musicians have been trying to give a less naïve interpretation of his works. For the Polish composer was not merely a creator of lovely melodies, but a revolutionary in matters of harmony. The pianist Pietro De Maria – Venetian by birth, residing in Prato, teacher at the Scuola di Fiesole – is the latest to offer a more objective picture of Chopin. Which means multi-faceted, not aloof.
De Maria has taken out the sugar without losing the sweetness. He emphasizes the crystalline melodiousness of operatic matrix without forgetting that sometimes it is sustained by an aggregation of unconventional chords. In the past few years he has played Chopin’s complete works in concert halls, in Florence for the Amici della Musica, and now he has completed his recording of them: nine installments, the last of which is a box of three CDs with the 58 mazurkas plus the Fantasie, the Berceuse, the Barcarolle, the Bolero, and the four Rondeaux.
The Mazurkas show that, in spite of his having moved to Paris, Chopin’s feet were firmly planted on his native soil, and the echo of the untuned country orchestras that accompanied the dances still ran incessantly through his mind.
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