Fanfare Magazine
“Mariani’s performance is outstanding, technically commanding and of utter musical integrity.”
An exceptionally positive assessment; no numerical star rating is assigned.
Read the interview and review ↗
Da Vinci Classics
Physical and Digital Release: 16 March 2018
Maria Gabriella Mariani presents her own piano music in Pour Jouer and Ologramma, exploring connections between virtuoso writing, musical memory, variation and improvisation.
13.67€
Pour jouer · Maria Gabriella Mariani · 7 tracks
Timings follow the Spotify and Apple Music digital edition; work titles and dates follow the original booklet.
“I have two languages and many languages.” This is how Maria Gabriella Mariani defines herself. Music, which has always been part of her life, and narrative writing, which she has pursued for several years, are two sides of the same coin.
Martha Argerich has praised her musical nature: “An extremely interesting talent; sure, imaginative, very artistic, her way of playing is so varied, it is never predictable […], I love her Scarbo […] Her improvisations are extraordinary.” Mariani has explored improvisation since childhood.
Her pianistic roots lie in Vincenzo Vitale’s Neapolitan school, although she soon distanced herself less from Vitale’s teaching than from the concept of a school in general. She studied with Aldo Ciccolini in Italy and Paris and graduated with an “Excellent” assessment from the Lorenzo Perosi International Academy in Biella. She also studied chamber music with the Trio di Trieste, while preferring solo performance.
At the age of fourteen, she made her debut at Rimini’s Aterforum, receiving substantial attention from leading Italian critics. A few years later, winning the Liszt piano competition in Lucca brought her a scholarship to study in Paris; she subsequently received a prize from the Senate of the Italian Republic. She won first prizes in numerous national and international competitions.
Her compositions and recordings, presented throughout Italy, have attracted the attention of A. Barizza, N. Cattò, L. Ciammarughi, G. P. Minardi, L. Segalla, S. Valanzuolo, L. Valente and A. Zignani, among others. In 2014, the Neapolitan musicologist, composer and conductor Roberto De Simone devoted an essay to her work and to possible approaches to composition today, observing that “the music of Maria Gabriella Mariani could declare the possibility of today’s creativity.” As a soloist, she has performed for prestigious concert associations and theatres in Italy and abroad.
A graduate in literature, she wrote a thesis entitled Schumann. Thought and Fantasy and has published scholarly writings on music, literature and the arts in collaboration with several Italian universities. At the time of the original biography, she had received four Global Music Awards in the United States, recognising her work as a composer and as an interpreter of French music—including Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit—and her own piano compositions. Her work has received public and critical acclaim.
After hearing some of her music, Ciccolini said: “Her music reveals a very impressive creative sense, supported by exceptional pianistic skills and a complete mastery of the keyboard, together with a search for tonal colour that is more unique than rare.”
Maria Gabriella Mariani is an Italian pianist, composer and writer who studied first in Italy and then in France. Alongside her concert career, she has devoted herself to composition since 2008. Her first CD, Presenze (2008), contains seven solo piano works inspired by her first novel of the same name. That year she also composed Fun Tango: Three Radiant Flows of a Single Matrix, a piano work in three movements for which she received three Global Music Awards in 2017, as both composer and performer. Her novel Imperfect Consonances is linked to Fun Tango; both were published in 2010.
In 2009 she composed Il cielo s’inabissa (The Sky Sinks) and Traces, a piano sonata in three movements. In 2014 she recorded Riflessi (Reflections), solo piano pieces connected to her collection of stories of the same name, centred on an imaginary wheel of time.
In 2011 she dedicated the sonata Pour jouer to her teacher Aldo Ciccolini and performed it in his presence in 2014 at the official event “Tribute to Aldo Ciccolini.” After the performance, he said publicly: “I recognised myself very often during the performance of this piece—a masterly performance that also reveals a truly exceptional personality, that of Mariani, with extraordinary pianistic resources. I express my emotion, all my feeling, on hearing this monumental work dedicated to me.”
In 2013 she composed Solo and In the Name of the Father and the Son. The latter, for two voices, piano and chamber orchestra, is connected to a theatrical libretto of the same name, also written by Mariani as a novel. Further compositions include Ologramma: Theme, 17 Variations and Finale with Improvisation (2014) and Kinderliana (2017), a collection of pieces connected to her Fairy Tales of Doracia.
She has performed her compositions at major Italian theatres, conservatories, festivals and concert associations. Her music has been broadcast by RAI TRE, RSI in Lugano and Radio Classica’s “Il Pianista,” and has received appreciative assessments and reviews in leading music magazines. Some of her scores are published by Da Vinci Publishing in Osaka.
Pour jouer · Dedicated to Aldo Ciccolini (2011) This composition has three movements—Allegro, Andante and Allegro con fuoco—and appears to take the form of a sonata. In reality, it departs from that model because the themes of each movement recur, often as variations. Like most of Mariani’s music, this work makes extensive use of variation, in both an aesthetic and a philological sense. We can therefore speak of a multi-thematic approach expressed through counterpoint. Like a Gaussian bell curve, each composition reaches a point of rhythmic intensity that does not…
This composition has three movements—Allegro, Andante and Allegro con fuoco—and appears to take the form of a sonata. In reality, it departs from that model because the themes of each movement recur, often as variations. Like most of Mariani’s music, this work makes extensive use of variation, in both an aesthetic and a philological sense. We can therefore speak of a multi-thematic approach expressed through counterpoint.
Like a Gaussian bell curve, each composition reaches a point of rhythmic intensity that does not always coincide with a particular movement. From that moment onwards, each theme returns and is recalled to memory until it is exhausted, bringing the whole structure back to its initial state. The E-major idea in the first movement is introduced by a chord similar to the one that concludes the last movement. This is no coincidence: if the opening bars of the first movement are understood as an introduction, and the real beginning as the E-major passage, the whole composition follows a circular, and thus potentially infinite, course.
The choice of a tonal language is not intended simply to indulge in melody; rather, it expresses a need to communicate as well as to give form to a piece. It also reflects the fact that the composer often performs her own works. This is not a distinctive or exclusive characteristic. For Mariani, the underlying framework is a kind of language in which she sets down her ideas, choosing each time the language that best characterises the composition.
The title also reflects the pianist Aldo Ciccolini’s relationship with France: the composer wished to play on the word’s multiple meanings and associations. As for the dedication, Pour jouer is not programme music and does not portray Ciccolini. Rather, he provides a starting point for reflection on the complex and intense artistic relationship between him and the composer.
The long subtitle describes a composition that can be divided into two parts. The first comprises a theme, variations and a finale; the second is an improvisation on the subjects previously presented and transformed.
As a child, before she could read music, Mariani enjoyed giving impromptu performances. Today these become encores, at the audience’s request. From a stylistic point of view, the cyclical nature of her music should again be emphasised: an indistinct flow assumes different forms and characteristics through the relationship between its motifs and the surrounding context.
In retrospect, while Pour jouer and Fun Tango (2008) suggest atmospheres reminiscent of Ravel, this second work contains motifs that seem to echo the tarantella, along with Mediterranean colours that re-emerge unconsciously from the composer’s memory.
The title expresses the intention to link each variation to the preceding one and, ultimately, all the variations to one another. This is particularly evident in the finale, where, as in Pour jouer, each theme and/or variation returns and is integrated into a texture tending towards orchestral symphonic writing.
The same intention informs the improvisation, in which references to a tonal framework are even more apparent—perhaps also because precise structural parameters are difficult to recognise in an extemporaneous piece.
For the composer, this was a very complex process, in a sense constrained by the themes already presented: the improvisation itself is intended as a kind of macro-variation encompassing all the variations.
Each variation is like a beam of laser light recorded on a plate, which can be read in different dimensions. The plate’s surface seems to conceal infinite depths, one inside another, all multidimensional.
Text by Maria Gabriella Mariani. The English wording has been revised from the original booklet.
Maria Gabriella Mariani · composer and piano.
Recorded in Castellammare di Stabia, December 2017. Sound engineering and editing: Carlo Gentiletti. Mixing: Massimo Marchese. Elios Recording, Castellammare di Stabia.
Cover photograph: Maria Gabriella Mariani. Production, design and art direction: OMK – Da Vinci. Printed with the support of S.P.L.M. ℗ & © OMK – Da Vinci Classics. Manufactured in Japan.
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Fanfare Magazine
“Mariani’s performance is outstanding, technically commanding and of utter musical integrity.”
An exceptionally positive assessment; no numerical star rating is assigned.
Read the interview and review ↗Fanfare Magazine
Read the review ↗MusicWeb International
“Her pianism is dramatic and fearless with a great sense of theatre”
A positive assessment of Mariani’s own piano works and expressive virtuosity, with a recommendation for lovers of Romantic piano music.
Read the review ↗ - MusicWeb InternationalConcerti
“virtuos interpretiert, überzeugt technisch sowie im gestalterischen Ausdruck”
Praise for Mariani’s improvisational artistry and her technically and expressively convincing interpretation; the full review also notes a reservation about recording quality.
Read the review ↗ - ConcertiMusica
Musica's official index records a 3/5 review in issue 300, page 107. The full review has not been consulted.
Read the review ↗ - MusicaCritica Classica
An announcement of Mariani's Ologramma book presentation explicitly connects the novel to the recording Pour Jouer / Virtuoso Piano Works and its Ologramma variations and improvisation. This is editorial coverage of the relationship between the book and the album, rather than a review of the recording.
Explore the coverage ↗ - Critica Classica![Brahms, Mariani, Ravel: Il Mito e la Memoria [Mythos and Memories]](https://i0.wp.com/davinci-edition.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/833-DigiFile-3-Ante-con-Tasca.jpg?fit=768%2C701&ssl=1)
![Robert Schumann: Etica, estetica. Il sentimento [Ethics, Aesthetics. The feeling]](https://i0.wp.com/davinci-edition.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/1069-New-Booklet-8-Pages.jpg?fit=768%2C768&ssl=1)