We had the pleasure of interviewing Maestro Maurizio Baglini, who will hold his piano masterclass at the Livorno Music Festival from August 19th to 24th. In this interview, we will review some significant moments of his career, address the theme of the importance of communicating with the audience, and listen to reflections on his approach to contemporary music and teaching. Let’s begin.
During your career, you have had the opportunity to collaborate with important orchestras and conductors. Is there a moment that you remember with particular emotion or that has had a significant impact on you?
There are many, so answering selectively would mean doing injustice to someone. However, I like to remember, in terms of orchestra conductors, Donato Renzetti in ’99, because for me, it was a very important debut with him in Catania at the Teatro Bellini. I had a first impact with a truly prestigious and important conductor, with a very demanding program. Above all, I remember it because it made me discover the world of theater. That week, in addition to the symphonic production (I had played Mozart’s Concerto K 503 and Chopin’s Variations on Là ci darem la mano), Maestro Lorenzetti made me discover everything related to the staging, as we were working on a Bellinian opera, with artistic direction at the time by Piero Lattalino… So, I remember that week with particular curiosity on my part because I was very young.
Then, the debut in Paris with the orchestra was with Armin Jordàn, (or Jordan, giving precedence to the Franco surname or not) who was Philippe Jordan’s father, who today is one of the greatest living conductors, having conducted at the Vienna Staatsoper and the Paris Opera. Armin Jordan truly opened up a new world for me because he allowed me to debut in a world capital of music, in a historic venue: the Salle Gaveau in Paris. So, this is a precious and very prestigious memory.
Then, in terms of more recent orchestra conductors, there was the meeting with Daniel Harding, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. So, even being a soloist with a conductor of this caliber today implies not just nostalgic memories, but a sense of responsibility towards what unfortunately can no longer be classified as a debut experience; but fortunately, on one hand, it certifies an activity perhaps more established as important, but on the other hand, it also entails a responsibility towards the enjoyment of classical music in today’s society.
Then, the last episode I mention is the one always visible on the homepage of my website, the famous concert Tre Quadri by Francesco Filidei dedicated to me, because it was done in the midst of lockdown. So, you only see the orchestra, we’re all wearing masks, Tito Ceccherini is conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Rai, but the live broadcast on EuroRadio and Rai Play was watched by about half a million people that evening. Then we repeated it at La Scala, in Milan, with a sold-out audience for the Milano Musica Festival. This was an important milestone because it’s the first large-scale concert dedicated to me. So, when you start to be the interpreter of something that is written for you, it means that time passes, and perhaps it has been well spent, there has been a certain dedication.
You, indeed, were the dedicatee of Tre Quadri by Francesco Filidei. How does one approach studying a piece of contemporary music that has never been performed before?
Well, I must say that I have played many masterpieces by Salvatore Sciarrino; for example, I have played practically everything written for the piano by Azio Corghi. So, I have also had the privilege of studying with these great masters. Now, with Francesco Filidei, there is also a story that, all in all, is also told within the Livorno context, which is important because we are both from Pisa, children of non-musicians and families who, I don’t want to sound pathetic, really struggled to make ends meet to afford our studies. We went to study and live in Paris together. Francesco always tells the story that I, having recently won the Montecarlo competition and being the “rich” one, would lend him clothes… I mean, we truly went through what can be considered the apprenticeship, in the etymological sense of the term, together, and it’s a beautiful story because two boys coming from a city, however important, but provincial – with all due respect, indeed in the noblest sense of the term provincial – make a career, meet again, and Tre Quadri, moreover, represented Francesco’s debut as a composer at La Scala. I had already played as an interpreter. So, there is a powerful human story, in this specific case, and I apologize for the anecdote, but it was worth telling.
So, having said that, I answer your question, how does one approach it? One approaches it in the healthiest and most integral way possible, because one is not conditioned by any prejudice that is instead given by the performance tradition.
Let me explain further. I always tell my students that every piece of music, even that of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, the composers with whom it is no longer possible to speak, must be approached as if it were contemporary music. Firstly, because it is, it is timeless music, so it will often be contemporary to any era, think of Beethoven; then because if we play it today, unable to change the notes – because classical music is “exact music,” as Bernstein defined it, so it is written that way – we must act on the interpretative factor in the proper, intrinsic sense. So, we act on dynamics, timbre, phrasing, the famous personal taste, one might say to the public, right? But how far can one act?
Well, one acts when one is sincere in one’s ideas, and so I tell everyone that contemporary music, that of our days, written today, which allows the fabulous privilege of frequenting the composer, of being able to talk to them or even to embark on a journey together because sometimes some details may be changed, because they are decided based on the interpreter. This was the case with Tre Quadri, which then had an evolution already seen in the visible video, for example, during the lockdown and subsequent performances, it was performed more than six or seven times, in short, so we also exported it.
So, this is the healthiest and most useful approach because it is the one that restores the beauty of live sound at that moment in the spontaneity of live performance. So, essentially, it’s the most beautiful and natural approach, if I may say so, in the sense that we should always be equally fresh, even when playing music of which we may know interpretations, which are perhaps admirable.
Then, I always say that after the historical levels reached by the greatest masters, speaking of pianists such as Horowitz, Richter, Benetti, Michelangeli, now it’s also, unfortunately, the time of the passing of Maestro Pollini. I mean, what can one do after them? Nothing better. One can only do something different, and so the approach is to make even past music contemporary. So, in some ways, that of today’s music is the materially most powerful challenge because it’s difficult. The composer has something in mind, but not even they, until they hear the performance, know exactly what it will be, and the interpreter is the craftsman who shapes the material together with everyone else. Then, in this case, among other things, the work was amazingly captivating because the work was done by three, also with Tito Ceccherini, who was also a dedicatee of Tre Quadri, and then with the orchestra with a very wide range of instruments. So, in short, there was a definitive enrichment, I would say.
You are among the few virtuosos in the world to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Liszt’s extremely challenging transcription. What kind of preparation is required not only to perform such complex compositions but also to perform them in front of an audience?
Well, first of all, I have to say that it’s a title I acquired at a time, about 16 years ago, when things weren’t going well, unlike fortunately they are now, so out of pure and simple necessity. I mean, it was requested of me, no one else was doing it; I’m not seeking primacy in any kind of situation. Yes, for example, I made the two albums of Chopin’s Studies when I was barely twenty. Nowadays, there are fifteen-year-olds who play them superbly, but that’s not the point. The fact is that there are titles that require such commitment that it takes time, dedication, or an almost vocational calling, or just, as was the case then (because it was a commission from Radio France, the debut took place at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, so in the auditorium of the Musée d’Orsay), and then the effort was so extensive that it became a lucky charm because from there I entered the roster of Becca di Universal, with whom I still collaborate exclusively on a discographic level. So, it’s a piece that changed my life for the better. However, the approach is to try to understand if a piece is rarely performed because it’s too difficult, because it doesn’t resonate with the audience, rightly, as you said, or if it’s simply a pure and simple coincidence, like Jung’s synchronicities, you know? Sometimes, well, it just happened like that, but from that moment on, one sees the usefulness, I insist on the term social utility, that is, the emotional, ethical function of music. In my case, it was because then over these years I’ve performed it more than 150 times, an average of 10 performances per year, in short, it also opened up a world for me. Now I’m making my debut in Canada and taking this title with me. I hope inwardly, but I also physically carry it in a recital in Montreal. So, in the specific case of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (because I also performed the Pastoral over the years), I was talking the other day, for example, with Gabriele Baldocci, who is a true Livornese living in Rome, who is tackling them all, he says. “I haven’t done the Ninth yet.”
What’s the point? Firstly, the cultural and historical context of the piece. That is, why did Franz Liszt take 36 years to transcribe Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for piano, at a time when he knew more about it than any of us, aware of the fact that it is unimprovable music, it is absolute, perfect, and so why bother? Well, there is a spirit of dissemination. It starts from a historical fact, orchestras were not available, Liszt makes a transcriptive, literal work.
And today, if one proposes it (which I willingly continue to do), it must have a high significance respecting the transcriber, because let’s not forget that before Liszt’s experience there had been experiments – including Richard Wagner’s on the Ninth Symphony, which, I believe, truly knew the orchestration in a sublime way; however, it is not as effective because he was not as much a pianist as Liszt was.
So, I start from the path that made it so that there was a reason why this transcription then originated. Moreover, in the Ninth Symphony, there was first the bi-piano version, so then there are all the gossips, feuilletons that say: “Well, but Liszt didn’t have a worthy rival for his partnership at the piano,” but that matters very little. What matters is to start from the assumption that one must encourage the audience to come and discover the greatness of this piano titan that was Liszt, also at the same time the creator, after all, of the symphonic poem, and start from the assumption that Liszt performs an act of veneration towards Beethoven, who is and perhaps will remain the composer unique in terms of emotional message contemplated for the cosmos, for the universe. That is, Beethoven is the first to write for humanity. Liszt is aware of this, and I humbly, in my role as a translator, must simply bring to the public this hypothesis that has a historical evolution that today can make sense, provided that it is not considered a reduction, that is.
Of course, it must not be easy, it’s a beautiful and important commitment.
Also for memory, yes, in short, physically important.
You are among the few virtuosos in the world to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Liszt’s extremely challenging transcription. What kind of preparation is required not only to perform such complex compositions but also to perform them in front of an audience?
Well, first of all, I have to say that it’s a title I acquired at a time, about 16 years ago, when things weren’t going well, unlike fortunately they are now, so out of pure and simple necessity. I mean, it was requested of me, no one else was doing it; I’m not seeking primacy in any kind of situation. Yes, for example, I made the two albums of Chopin’s Studies when I was barely twenty. Nowadays, there are fifteen-year-olds who play them superbly, but that’s not the point. The fact is that there are titles that require such commitment that it takes time, dedication, or an almost vocational calling, or just, as was the case then (because it was a commission from Radio France, the debut took place at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, so in the auditorium of the Musée d’Orsay), and then the effort was so extensive that it became a lucky charm because from there I entered the roster of Becca di Universal, with whom I still collaborate exclusively on a discographic level. So, it’s a piece that changed my life for the better. However, the approach is to try to understand if a piece is rarely performed because it’s too difficult, because it doesn’t resonate with the audience, rightly, as you said, or if it’s simply a pure and simple coincidence, like Jung’s synchronicities, you know? Sometimes, well, it just happened like that, but from that moment on, one sees the usefulness, I insist on the term social utility, that is, the emotional, ethical function of music. In my case, it was because then over these years I’ve performed it more than 150 times, an average of 10 performances per year, in short, it also opened up a world for me. Now I’m making my debut in Canada and taking this title with me. I hope inwardly, but I also physically carry it in a recital in Montreal. So, in the specific case of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (because I also performed the Pastoral over the years), I was talking the other day, for example, with Gabriele Baldocci, who is a true Livornese living in Rome, who is tackling them all, he says. “I haven’t done the Ninth yet.”
What’s the point? Firstly, the cultural and historical context of the piece. That is, why did Franz Liszt take 36 years to transcribe Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for piano, at a time when he knew more about it than any of us, aware of the fact that it is unimprovable music, it is absolute, perfect, and so why bother? Well, there is a spirit of dissemination. It starts from a historical fact, orchestras were not available, Liszt makes a transcriptive, literal work.
And today, if one proposes it (which I willingly continue to do), it must have a high significance respecting the transcriber, because let’s not forget that before Liszt’s experience there had been experiments – including Richard Wagner’s on the Ninth Symphony, which, I believe, truly knew the orchestration in a sublime way; however, it is not as effective because he was not as much a pianist as Liszt was.
So, I start from the path that made it so that there was a reason why this transcription then originated. Moreover, in the Ninth Symphony, there was first the bi-piano version, so then there are all the gossips, feuilletons that say: “Well, but Liszt didn’t have a worthy rival for his partnership at the piano,” but that matters very little. What matters is to start from the assumption that one must encourage the audience to come and discover the greatness of this piano titan that was Liszt, also at the same time the creator, after all, of the symphonic poem, and start from the assumption that Liszt performs an act of veneration towards Beethoven, who is and perhaps will remain the composer unique in terms of emotional message contemplated for the cosmos, for the universe. That is, Beethoven is the first to write for humanity. Liszt is aware of this, and I humbly, in my role as a translator, must simply bring to the public this hypothesis that has a historical evolution that today can make sense, provided that it is not considered a reduction, that is.
Of course, it must not be easy, it’s a beautiful and important commitment. Also for memory, yes, in short, physically important.
Both, that is, in this way the audience is enriched and an extremely important action for humanity is also taken here.
Well, it should be like that. After all, it’s timeless music, as we said before. Timeless why? Because it often touches the concept of the sublime, but also music that is very pleasing to those who don’t know it. So, the problem is to reposition it in such a way that it becomes something perceived by others, by the audience. This applies to both Beethoven and contemporary music. The experience of Tre Quadri, which we mentioned earlier, made me understand especially during lockdown, where we were all in a condition of discomfort, that, for example, there is much less prejudice in adolescents who don’t attend concerts towards contemporary music, compared to what I call “the habitual bourgeois subscribers,” with all due respect, because we all need it and I don’t want to be classist, indeed, we should be thankful. But we also need to have the courage to say certain things and dispel some taboos. Dissonance creates insecurity, which a certain age group of the audience doesn’t want to have. Consonance puts everyone at ease. Today, in fact, there is an exaggerated inflation of everything that is easy, that is immediate. Instead, no. The willingness to make a minimal effort is there.
And teaching, to answer the previous question, how to relate to the audience means, in my opinion, being aware of this.
You have also shown to be passionate about chamber music repertoire, playing with other musicians can influence the artistic growth of a young pianist?
It should. I personally find it almost imperative, a hateful term, but just yesterday, in fact in 48 hours, I had two chamber music experiences, one in Naples a few days ago with Brahms’ Op. 60 Quartet and Schumann’s Quartet with Piano Op. 47, yesterday afternoon with Schubert’s Trout, Mendelssohn’s Sextet, which becomes a piece of almost expanded chamber music, a piece by Simonide Braconi that was written for the same ensemble as The Trout, so contemporary, and then Schumann’s Märchenbilder, so a duo. So, a variable geometry with two important violists. There was also Francesco Fiore, and with me yesterday, there were Silvia Chiesa on cello, Amerigo Bernardi on double bass, and Gabriele Pieranunzi on violin. So, all people with whom I have shared years of chamber music.
Yesterday’s concert, from duo to sextet, made me understand even more (and it will be continuously growing also for the next chamber music production) how much need for democratization there is in music and hierarchy, in fact, because the hierarchy of voices is achieved if you respect each other. It is very true that to have you must give in chamber music. Too often it is erroneously considered almost a diminution, right? Often it is said, “But it’s just chamber music.” Instead, why was Richter perhaps the most important phenomenon of the twentieth century in interpretation in the broadest sense? Because from leadership to even more abstruse chamber music, in a way, to great solo performances with orchestra, he managed to touch everything that music can contemplate, and then let’s not forget that statistically chamber music represents about 72-73% of production. So, how can you bypass it, ignore it, or not consider its importance? Those who do not experience it sufficiently, in my opinion, then find themselves victims of a real wound.
Sure, perfect then, maestro, we thank you very much for the answers you have given us and we invite all pianists who want to take advantage of this summer to perfect their art with, precisely, a master of the caliber of Maurizio Baglini at the Livorno Music Festival the dates are from August 19th to August 24th.
A wonderful way to benefit from the Tuscan coast. That is, I mean Livorno – and I say this as a native of Pisa – historically the most welcoming city, it has also demonstrated this in wartime. It is the Medicean port, it is the most generous city in terms of humanity, that one can, let’s say, discover and I also believe that, well, it may be nice to have a few hours where you can go to the sea, you can visit a particular Tuscany. Maybe you can enjoy concerts because then the Festival is this, of absolute value. I believe I can say that the Livorno Festival is the most prestigious international ensemble, belonging to Livorno, currently, considering various forms of art, not just music.
We thank you very much also for this final thought. So, we say goodbye and we’ll see you later. This has been the Livorno Music Festival.
We remind you that all Livorno Music Festival students can participate in the selection to play with the masters on the festival stage, and that some instrumentalists will be able to participate in the selection to play as soloists with the Mascagni Conservatory Orchestra in the concert on September 1st, 2024, scheduled in the program of concerts of the XIV edition of the Livorno Music Festival. All information is available on the dedicated page Prizes and Competitions