La Stampa
De Maria's great Bach
"...De Maria is never mechanical or rigid: Bach’s music palpitates like that of the romantics, but without slipping into an anachronistic style: a balance between discipline and expression that recalls the great interpreters of the past, like Gieseking or Arrau. And every time I hear him, De Maria’s refined and vigorous style reminds me of them. He is, perhaps, unique in his classicism, among the pianists who are popular today."Pietro De Maria is among the best of the middle aged generation of pianists, and his international fame has been consecrated by the performance of Chopin’s complete works recorded for Decca. Now, from his romantic favorites, he has turned to the tutelary deity that Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt and others viewed with astonished admiration, that is Johann Sebastian Bach. De Maria played the whole first book of Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier for the Unione Musicale the other evening at the Conservatory. The concert began at 20:30, given the exceptional length of the twenty-four preludes and fugues, and it held the attention of the audience thanks to the interpretative idea and the technical realization of De Maria’s performance. First of all, there was no nostalgia for the harpsichord.
De Maria plays the piano, and he draws every possible advantage from it: variety of touch, gradation of the dynamics, the slight extension of notes with the pedal, contrast of phrasing between the staccato and the legato, all things that could not be done by plucking a string instrument. The performance offered, therefore, a variety of sound perspectives which benefitted the architecture of the preludes and above all that of the fugues: the way the parts fit together, and the stratification of the counterpoint become very clear, because they are graded on a chiaroscuro basis, the relationship between forte and piano, luminosity and opacity of the touch.
De Maria is never mechanical or rigid: Bach’s music palpitates like that of the romantics, but without slipping into an anachronistic style: a balance between discipline and expression that recalls the great interpreters of the past, like Gieseking or Arrau. And every time I hear him, De Maria’s refined and vigorous style reminds me of them. He is, perhaps, unique in his classicism, among the pianists who are popular today.
"...De Maria is never mechanical or rigid: Bach’s music palpitates like that of the romantics, but without slipping into an anachronistic style: a balance between discipline and expression that recalls the great interpreters of the past, like Gieseking or Arrau. And every time I hear him, De Maria’s refined and vigorous style reminds me of them. He is, perhaps, unique in his classicism, among the pianists who are popular today."Pietro De Maria is among the best of the middle aged generation of pianists, and his international fame has been consecrated by the performance of Chopin’s complete works recorded for Decca. Now, from his romantic favorites, he has turned to the tutelary deity that Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt and others viewed with astonished admiration, that is Johann Sebastian Bach. De Maria played the whole first book of Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier for the Unione Musicale the other evening at the Conservatory. The concert began at 20:30, given the exceptional length of the twenty-four preludes and fugues, and it held the attention of the audience thanks to the interpretative idea and the technical realization of De Maria’s performance. First of all, there was no nostalgia for the harpsichord.
De Maria plays the piano, and he draws every possible advantage from it: variety of touch, gradation of the dynamics, the slight extension of notes with the pedal, contrast of phrasing between the staccato and the legato, all things that could not be done by plucking a string instrument. The performance offered, therefore, a variety of sound perspectives which benefitted the architecture of the preludes and above all that of the fugues: the way the parts fit together, and the stratification of the counterpoint become very clear, because they are graded on a chiaroscuro basis, the relationship between forte and piano, luminosity and opacity of the touch.
De Maria is never mechanical or rigid: Bach’s music palpitates like that of the romantics, but without slipping into an anachronistic style: a balance between discipline and expression that recalls the great interpreters of the past, like Gieseking or Arrau. And every time I hear him, De Maria’s refined and vigorous style reminds me of them. He is, perhaps, unique in his classicism, among the pianists who are popular today.
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