Schumann, Mariani, Debussy: Fairy Tales

“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.”

Claude Debussy: (b St Germain-en-Laye, 22 Aug 1862; d Paris, 25 March 1918). French composer. One of the most important musicians of his time, his harmonic innovations had a profound influence on generations of composers. He made a decisive move away from Wagnerism in his only complete opera Pelléas et Mélisande, and in his works for piano and for orchestra he created new genres and revealed a range of timbre and colour which indicated a highly original musical aesthetic.

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.

Robert Schumann: (b Zwickau, Saxony, 8 June 1810; d Endenich, nr Bonn, 29 July 1856). German composer and music critic. While best remembered for his piano music and songs, and some of his symphonic and chamber works, Schumann made significant contributions to all the musical genres of his day and cultivated a number of new ones as well. His dual interest in music and literature led him to develop a historically informed music criticism and a compositional style deeply indebted to literary models. A leading exponent of musical Romanticism, he had a powerful impact on succeeding generations of European composers.