Marco Sollini: Méditation à Saint François d’Assise, Op. 44, for Piano

Méditation à Saint François d’Assise, Op. 44, for solo piano
Dedicated to mamma Lucia
Carpi, 28 March 2021

Méditation à Saint François d’Assise op. 44 is an unusually rather long piece, in comparison with the standard length of Marco Sollini’s piano works. Sollini, in fact, is a composer who favours the album leaf, the miniature form with an evocative-descriptive character. This homage to St. Francis of Assisi has been conceived precisely for being performed in the Franciscan places, for a moment of introspection laid with intimate emotion. It is a funeral march, opening with tragical bell tolls, which the composer appreciates particularly; this does not hide a thought directed toward Rossini’s Memento Homo, or, at least, toward its deep and resigned character. Not by chance, this piece is dedicated to the memory of “mamma Lucia”, the composer’s mother, who passed away more than ten years ago.

The march assumes, little by little, a declamatory and dramatic tone. After a short, poetic cadence, it reaches its central moment – extremely dreamy and lyrical, enriched by repeated arpeggios entrusted to the left hand. This continues until another short cadenza which brings back to the initial funeral march, closing with a coda symbolically ascending to high pitches. It reaches a suspension announcing the conclusion with the inexorable tolls which had opened this work. It is a work with a language which is not “innovative”, but sincere; we can find there the already-cited echoes from Rossini as well as Liszt (for the pianistic power of some moments), and from Chopin (for the lyrical intensity, expressed in an ineluctable fashion). This piece is particularly cherished by its composer.

S. B.