This concert programme performed by pianist Ida Pelliccioli explores composers that pushed the boundaries of compositional technique in order to reflect another inner, metaphysical search in their lives that could easily find an echo with the questionings of the modern listener.
Programme
Arvo Pärt – Für Alina (1976)
Pēteris Vasks – Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1978)
Alexander Knaifel – Ионус (1992)
Elena Kats-Chernin – Page turn (2000)
John Tavener – Pratirúpa (2003)
Doors open at 6:30pm. Concert begins at 7pm.
Für Alina (1976) is among the most performed works of Arvo Pärt. The Estonian composer has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli, and this piece is an essential example of it. He described this new style with the following words: "Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers – in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this… The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation."
With Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1978), the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks wanted to compose a small-scale requiem for the hope of people of all ages. The title, borrowed from Mozart, is here coloured in a poignantly ironical hue. The greater the musical experience of the listener, the deeper is the understanding of this music and its composer. For example, the Latvian speech melody and the proximity of the diatonic folk song to the mediaeval sequence Dies irae suddenly reveals itself as a concept of night music from a more general aspect. The rhythmically constant pulsation in the piano bass subsequently assumes a semantic significance and could possibly be an elegy for Schubert's Erlkönig.
From the very beginning of his composing career, Alexander Knaifel associated himself with the group of so-to-say "avant-garde" Soviet composers that include Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Arvo Pärt and others. The works of the 1990s and 2000s were strongly influenced by religious themes and showed dramatic changes of his musical language. Ионус (1992) is an example of how he liberated himself from a traditional writing, composing the score like a constellation, with bits of sequences scattered on the page. Their bead-like structure welcomes a thread of spiritual seeking, marking the passage of parts with fermatas that invite the listener to meditate on the resonance of the sound and by the same time, marking a passage towards the firmament as the piece stretches towards the higher register of the piano.
Page Turn (2000) is a piece by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, commissioned by the Sydney International Piano Competition. Kats-Chernin‘s work is rife with cultural influences, particularly the styles of Eastern Europe, but it is also uninhibited – her compositions may draw inspiration from French impressionist Erik Satie, or Italian Baroque composer Scarlatti, or even a tango. But they are all undeniably hers. Throughout her career, Kats-Chernin has grown to symbolise the sheer power of contemporary classical music in Australia; and the ability of modern artists to learn from the great composers of the past, and craft something new that can compete with – or even surpass – the old. Page Turn is a piece that showcases different techniques – overlapping hands, repetition and jumps – in an agitated race without pauses or silences, that goes beyond describing an anguished and effervescent run, as if we were trapped in a maze, and through agitation manages to evoke a lyrical voice that is determined to find an exit to its suffering, determined to turn the page.
John Rutter describes John Tavener as having the "very rare gift" of being able to "bring an audience to a deep silence." While Tavener's earliest music was influenced by Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen, his later music became more sparse, using wide registral space, and was usually diatonically tonal. Tavener also recognised Arvo Pärt as "a kindred spirit" and shared with him a common religious tradition and a fondness for textural transparency. Pratirúpa (2003) means “reflection” in Sanskrit. This is his longest work for piano, and presents a series of self-reflecting resonances, harmonies, melodies and rhythms, so that the music becomes as if it were “the pupil of the ear”, instead of “the pupil of the eye”. Traditionally, it is by looking at the “pupil of the eye” in another that one can see the most perfect, the most God-like aspect, indeed one can see ATMA – the SELF. In musical terms therefore, by the very act of “listening” with our ear, the sound will change “alchemically”, and hopefully produce a music that is quite literally “the ear of the ear”, that inward ear which is at the same time an eternal sound. Of course, Pratirúpa can be simply listened to as a piece of piano music, but the “metaphysical subject” which lies at the heart of it should be explained – and indeed may assist the listener.
Text by Ida Pelliccioli
About the Musician
Ida Pelliccioli was born in Bergamo, Italy. She studied at the Nice Conservatoire de Région and at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris – Alfred Cortot in the class of Serguei Markarov, UNESCO Artist for Peace. During her studies, Ida Pelliccioli was awarded several scholarships, among them one from the Zygmunt Zaleski Foundation and one from the Fondation Albert Roussel. She participated in number of masterclasses, including with Jean-Claude Pennetier and Gerard Wyss, and received a double diploma in interpretation and pedagogy at the École Normale in Paris. She received artistic guidance from Norma Fisher, who teaches at the Royal College of Music in London, as well as Stephen Gutman, and she is one of the rare pianists to have received guidance from the Cuban concert pianist Jorge Luis Prats.
Ida chose to avoid the international competition circuit, and before becoming a full-time pianist she received a double master diploma in Italian Literature and Ancient Greek History at the Sorbonne University, specialising for the latter in the practice of music during the Hellenistic period.
Ida has performed throughout Europe and Canada. During the 2021/22 season, she made her debut in Serbia, Luxembourg, Ireland and Romania. She will also debut in Switzerland in 2023 and Malta in 2024. In February 2018, she gave a solo recital in Milan under the patronage of Yamaha Italy. In September 2022, she started performing chamber music with a quintet programme. In 2021, Ida also took up a teaching position at Paris Conservatoire du 8ème arrondissement.
Ida has appeared on screen in the role of a pianist for the American TV series Find me in Paris (2017/2018) and the French series Munch (2018), and was cast to double the role of the pianist in the short movie Quand on ne sait pas voler (2019), directed by Thomas Keumurian and produced by FILMO.