| Monday, July 25, 2005
PIETRO DE MARIA'S INTERVIEW IN THE PRESTIGIOUS FRENCH MAGAZINE "PIANO".
SL - Your first record for Naxos was dedicated to Clementi. Was this an homage to a compatriot, or a personal choice?
PDM - It was certainly a personal choice...But .. I should say, more than a tribute from an Italian pianist to an Italian composer...it was an homage to Maria Tipo, who is the greatest interpreter of Clementi and who has helped me a great deal to understand his music better.
SL - Why do you suppose Clementi has been more or less forgotten by today’s pianists?
PDM - I really can’t understand why! His music is so rich, has such an extraordinary melodic vein, a great sense of drama, and a sense of humor, an authentically romantic sentiment in classical forms and proportions, and it is satisfying for the pianist to play, once the difficulties have been resolved. Beethoven admired Clementi very much, and great pianists like Horowitz and Tipo...have often played and recorded his works, what more can we ask? Perhaps Mozart’s comment, which defined him as a “mechanicus” in a letter to his father after the famous contest in which he was opposed to Clementi at the Viennese court, has weighed heavily on his reputation. I am sure that Mozart was mistaken. Mozart was a genius, as a composer he was practically infallible musically, but that doesn’t mean we have to take everything he said as absolute truth! Perhaps Mozart was feeling slightly ...envious of Clementi’s ability as a pianist and this determined the tone of his letter. Perhaps Clementi really did play like a “mechanicus” on that day (and the Toccata op.11 that he had chosen for the occasion certainly did not help matters, being essentially a virtuoso piece) but his is surely not arid music, written without sentiment, on the contrary!
SL - From Scarlatti to Fedele, what guides your choice of repertory?
PDM - Curiosity, basically...Sometimes I also learn a new piece for a precise request from a concert association or, more often, an orchestra, and I must say that I enjoy adding new concerts to my repertory.
SL - It appears that you have a predilection for Mendelssohn.
PDM - Yes, in Hamburg I won the Mendelssohn Prize for my interpretation of his 1st Concert, but I might add that the first time I played with an orchestra was after an audition with the Orchestra della Toscana in 1986 to find the best young interpreter of... Mendelssohn’s 2nd Concerto! I might say that this was the beginning of my particular predilection for this composer who is underestimated and ...”underperformed”.
SL - But you are also partial to Chopin, because his complete works in six concerts are among your coming projects.
PDM - That’s true, but I feel this is the natural consequence of my having played his music so frequently. Beginning with the 2006-07 concert season, I’ll play it in the chronological order that Nikita Magaloff adopted, dividing it into six concerts.