Maria Gabriella Mariani: Pour Jouer, for Piano

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.