1June 19, Saturday, 9.30 pm
Celsus Library, Ephesus
JOURNEY TO SCHUMANN’S MAGIC
MICHELE CAMPANELLA, piano
Programme
Robert Schumann: Papillons, Op.2
Robert Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13
Franz Liszt: Saint Francis preaches to the birds
Franz Liszt: Saint Francis walks on the waves
Franz Liszt: Sacred dance and final duet from Verdi’s Aida &
Final Duet (W.Pepperdine)
Franz Liszt: Rigoletto Paraphrase (W.Pepperdine)
Young Michele from Naples met Franz Liszt at the tender age of 14. The encounter was some sort of revelation. Immediately after Funérailles, he went on to play Mephisto-Valzer, which won him a national award at the age of 16 and the International Alfredo Casella Prize at 19. In 1968, he made his debut with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome and the state television Rai Orchestra in Milan playing Totentanz conducted by Eliahu Inbal and Christoph von Dohnanyi. In 1970, he signed a contract with Philips to record Totentanz, Hungarian Fantasy, a disc containing paraphrases and the 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies. Four of these recordings, now available on CD, are still sold all over the world. Other recordings followed for PYE England, Acanta and Nuova Era with a vast repertoire including the two Liszt’s Concertos with the London Philharmonic conducted by Hubert Soudant, all Wagner’s transcriptions and the 12 Transcendental Studies. In the 70s and 80s, Campanella did considerable work on Liszt’s paraphrases, anticipating and promoting the success that this type of music enjoys today. There are 41 of those in his repertoire. In 1986, on the 100th anniversary of Liszt’s death, he performed extensively in recitals and with orchestras, and completed a series of Lisztian recordings for Rai Uno at the Hungarian Academy in Rome. He was entrusted with the documentary “Viaggio in Italia”, again for Rai Uno, in which he played the piano and told stories about Liszt in Italy. In the same year, the Hungarian Ministry for Culture awarded him a medal for his Lisztian work. Another medal came in 2002 from the American Liszt Society, in the form of a career award for his work on Liszt. The Liszt Society of Budapest awarded him the Gran Prix du Disque three times (1977, 1978, 1998) for his recordings. His most recent lisztian award came in 2008 at the Grottammare Festival, the town in the Marche region of Italy where Liszt stayed on holiday.
One of the most interesting parts of Campanella’s lisztian repertoire is Via Crucis, which he recorded on CD conducting from the piano the Choir of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. He also played two Lisztian melodramas (Lenore e Der traurige Mönch) with the actor Glauco Mauri at the Scala Opera House in Milan. Campanella’s most recent musical feat was the performance of four Lisztian masterpieces for piano and orchestra in one evening under his direction. This had never been attempted before and is the result of his longstanding experience gathered during his 40 years on stage. Merging the roles of conductor and the soloist was not a mere exhibition of his skills, but rather an answer to the need for a complete unity of the musical intention.
Campanella has various projects lined up for 2011: four recitals featuring the greatest original masterpieces from the Lisztian repertoire: a synthesis of the work produced during his long career. As President of the “Società Liszt”, Italian Chapter of the American Liszt Society, he will collaborate with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia presenting in the Parco della Musica in Rome, for the first time in the world, the complete music for piano by Liszt (excluding the arrangements of original works written for other instruments, and alternative versions). In order to play 55 hours of music, between 2010 and 2011 seven marathons will be organised in which 60 Italian pianists will take part.
Michele Campanella has 137 Lisztian pieces in his repertoire and can list at least 2904 public performances of these pieces… to date.
Michele Campanella, Pianist
Internationally known as one of major interpreters and virtuoso of the Liszt repertoire, awarded the Grand Prix du Disque three years (1976, 1977 and 1998, the latter for «Franz Liszt - The Great Transcriptions, I-II» with Philips) by the prestigious «Franz Liszt» Academy in Budapest, Michele Campanella has faced in over 40 years of career most of the principal pages of the piano literature.
Highlights from his last important goals are the integral performance of Beethoven’s and Mozart’s Concertos and Brahms’s Integral works for piano.
Trained at the Vincenzo Vitale school in Naples, Michele Campanella is a versatile artist. This characteristic brought him to face authors like Clementi, Weber, Poulenc, Busoni («Italian Discographic Critic Reward» for the recording with Fonit Cetra) and Rossini, Brahms, Ravel and Liszt. His discography includes recording for Emi (Ravel), Philips (Liszt, Saint-Saëns), Fonè (Chopin), PYE (Liszt, Ciaikowsky), Fonit Cetra (Busoni), Nuova Era (Ciaikowsky, Liszt, Musorgskij, Balakirev), Musikstrasse (Rossini), P&P (Brahms, Liszt, Scarlatti), Niccolò (Schumann).
He performed with the major European and American orchestras (Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony) working with conductors like Claudio Abbado, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Eliahu Inbal, Charles Mackerras, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Thomas Schippers, Hubert Soudant, Christian Thielemann.
His activity brings him frequently in Australia, Russia, United Kingdom, Argentina, China, and he is a regular guest in the international festival of Lucerne, Vienna, Berlin, Prague and Pesaro (Rossini Opera Festival, for which he recorded Petite Messe Solennelle). In the Nineties, he developed a strong artistic relationship with Salvatore Accardo and Rocco Filippini as ideal partners to face chamber music masterpieces.
During the last years, he has enriched his career performing as conductor-soloist with several prestigious Italian orchestras, such as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, the ORT-Orchestra della Toscana, the Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, I Filarmonici di Verona, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento. His repertoire has included Ravel, Fauré, Poulenc, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, Weber, Liszt, as well as Mozart and Beethoven. He teaches piano at the summer masterclasses of Accademia Chigiana in Siena since 23 years, and he is the director of the “Centro di Studi pianistici Vincenzo Vitale” in Naples, where are teaching the best pupils of the great neapolitan master. Campanella is also the president of the “Società Liszt”, Italian chapter of the American Liszt Society.
Robert Schumann – Symphonic Etudes
Robert Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes op.13 consist of one theme and 12 etudes. It is one of Schumann’s most beautiful solo piano works. Schumann, while he was mentioning this work in the letters he sent to his wife Clara has said ‘it is not very appropriate to the listener. I composed it rather as a theoretical study. I don’t know how it would be if it is played.’ But, the symphonic etudes are in the repertoire of almost each great pianist on our day and they are usually performed completely together with their additional variations. The Etudes, as of their general atmosphere are at the line of Chopin’s mazurkas and nocturnes. Even in the fast and energetic ones of them, pessimism and sorrow are predominant.