Elia Cecino, in a concert for the IMAS, burst onto the stage of the Bangalore International Centre with an explosion of showmanship, his strong left hand asserting his arrival in Liszt’s Valse S407 from Gounod’s opera, Faust.
It is no surprise that Liszt, partial to a good tune, transcribed many famous melodies from opera. However, he never allowed his fierce creative energy to smother the original tunes, nor did he bury them under his prodigious inventions. His technically challenging Concert Paraphrases are popular in the concert repertoire, perhaps because they often seem unattainable by a mere two-handed pianist!
Cecino’s predilection for fff [fortissimo], particularly with his left hand, was given plenty of opportunity in the stretta and staccato sections of the Valse, but at no point was that gorgeous hummable tune lost in the musical verbiage, the waltz reasserting itself with fond familiarity. The unexceptional waltz theme is given recapitulations of glissando flourishes and subtle variations in the upper register, Liszt’s penchant for the demonic thereby conjuring up Mephistopheles, who lurks in the Faustian shadows. Cecino supplied the dynamic variations and chromatic extensions to the melody in rapturous measure, exposing the sensual, dramatic emotional impact of this voluptuous piece.
Elia Cecino examines all the elements of a piece, separately, and in relation to each other.
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy: eliacecino.it/en/
If one felt a relaxing release from Liszt in the following piece, it was deceptive relief, for Brahms’ Variations on a theme by Schumann, op.9F, also required virtuosity, of emotion and technique. It is a difficult piece to play really well, requiring true mastery of the keyboard and honest artistry, focusing on the slow and reflective bass line and harmony, rather than melody.
Brahms was only about 20 when he first met the Schumanns, and this early piece was a tribute to both, written for Clara, but based on a theme of Robert’s, written when the older composer was depressed. Robert Schumann’s final mental decline and hospitalisation occurred a few months after his initial meeting with, and championing of, Brahms. Brahms was allowed to visit Robert in the asylum [while Clara was not!] and was therefore their principal go-between. His first published large-scale set of Variations for solo piano, Op.9, is closely connected with the events of Schumann’s decline. While most Variation sets are in major-key themes, so that there is the possibility of exploring more keys, this theme is in the minor-key, perhaps to emphasise the piece’s intrinsically sad circumstances.
Looking for an obvious narrative link between the variations, one finds it only in Brahms’ relationship with Robert and Clara. Laden with multiple layers and hidden messages, they capture the sadness of the complex menage a trois, many of the variations appearing like dialogues, between male and female voices. In an attempt to immortalise Robert’s former brilliant compositional faculties, Brahms was almost drawing forth conversation with the works of the once stable composer.
Elia Cecino introduced every piece by speaking to the audience before playing it.
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy: eliacecino.it/en/
Clara, presciently, said of Brahms, “He will first find the true field for his genius when he begins to write for the orchestra”. Seeing the symphonic affiliations in the Variations, Cecino said that, while practising, he searches for ways to bring these orchestral influences to the keyboard, concentrating on how to recreate their instrumental reverberations and leave them lingering in the piano.
Cecino also said that while rehearsing Liszt, he slows down his playing immensely, so that he can examine all the piece’s elements, separately, and in relation to each other. It enables him to get to the actual emotions behind the piece, instead of focusing only on its technique. Such analysis is impossible in actual performance, where the performer is swept into a tempestuous Lisztian delirium, giving no time for reflection.
Cecino introduced his pieces, in what now seems to be accepted performance code, by speaking to the audience, giving his take on what he was about to play. His boyish charm enabled one to overlook his halting English, and once he was at the keyboard, he needed no language other than the music.
Another Liszt piece followed, though very different in mood and content. The Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, S. 161 was inspired by the Italian Renaissance poet’s sonnet, addressed to his adored Laura. The sonnet sequence captures love in its various moods, ‘Pace no Trovo’ [“I find no peace”] being about the ardors of unfulfilled love, the poet feeling trapped in a situation of his own making, yet enjoying his captivity. Along with unrequited love, the poet is beset with thoughts of mortality. Liszt originally set the sonnets as songs, which he abandoned and wrote them for piano instead. But he retained a sensitivity to the text, and Liszt’s musical renderings are his own response to the poetry.
Absorbed in his Romantic universe, Liszt’s composition allows subtle musicianship, whereby the pianist can shape phrases, which Cecino did with admirable shade and nuance, marrying the atmosphere and sentiments of the verse with the emotional music that fluctuates between lyricism and passion. The theatricality of Liszt abounded in fortissimo with octaves, double notes, long trills and augmented chords, all of which the pianist managed with aplomb.
In a brave move, Cecino ended with a contemporary piece, Orazio Sciortino’s Nuovo Sonetto del Petrarca, establishing its place in the programme with its mood and sentiment linking it to the preceding Liszt and Brahms. Cecino gave its US Premiere in 2022, and we were privileged to hear its Indian Premiere. Sciortino is a 40-year-old Milanese composer, a recognisable ideal for the 21st century, open to the new, yet with a firm foundation in tradition, so that his spirit embraces the present, unbound by the past’s ideologies, making his talent recognisably personal.
Sciortino’s “harmonic pollution” may not have been to everyone’s taste, but it proved that Cecino’s romantic vocabulary can bridge several centuries, and it was yet another showcase for his dramaturgical ability.
The encore was necessarily a winding down, with a gentle Chopin Waltz, but the lasting impression of the performance was one of a delightfully confident young man, capable of expressing [unexpected in a 23-year-old] with phenomenal technique and virtuosity.