5 Questions with Alessandro Marangoni

Alessandro Marangoni is an award-winning pianist from Novara, Italy who first burst onto the international concert stage when he won the prestigious “Amici di Milano” International Prize for Music in 2007. Since then, Alessandro has performed solo and orchestral concerts all over the world, appearing at Festival MITO, Rossini Opera Festival, alongside Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, and much more.

A noted advocate of Italian music, Alessandro has released four albums of Clementi, two albums of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and has recently completed recording all 200 of Rossini’s piano works, including 24 world-premieres. Additionally, Alessandro is co-founder of Forte?Fortissimo! TV, an organization that utilizes music for a humanitarian cause, and is on the forefront of technology called Chromoconcerto, which transforms musical frequencies into fascinating colors.

In anticipation of Alessandro’s latest Naxos release, Rossini: Piano Music, Vol. 11, we went behind-the-scenes with him on this exciting project!

This Naxos release is your eleventh volume of Gioachino Rossini piano works for Naxos, comprising all 200 of his known piano works, released over the span of 10 years. What inspired you to pursue this ambitious project?

For this project, I had to locate all of Rossini’s works, which proved to be very difficult, especially for his unpublished compositions. But it was very interesting because this was not only a recording project, but also a musicological research project. I discovered a lot about Rossini’s life: I read his letters, I studied his historical period, the persons who influenced him, and I discovered a wonderful world, a deep and intimate world, in which Rossini expressed his deepest humanity, even more so than in his operas, in my opinion. It was a massive and huge project and it took years but it really was an adventure. For example, it was an incredible feeling to see Rossini’s original manuscripts, to have the honour and luck to discover new pieces never recorded or performed.

Over the course of this series, you have gone to great lengths to create a definitive collection of Rossini’s piano works, with 24 never-before recorded works, extensive liner notes, and even doing a parrot voiceover in your sixth volume. What are some insights you have gained from this in-depth study of Rossini’s music?

I think this creative period of his life is the best period to really know and understand the man Rossini: his feelings, his personality, and his soul. With Péchés de vieillesse, Rossini wanted to write music only for the joy of doing so for himself and his friends, but he did not have the luxury to stop and write music without any commercial purpose or money. However, during the last period of his life, after Guglielmo Tell, Rossini didn’t need anything; he was rich, famous, and a star in the world. This was his appointment with himself and with God, which was the inspiration behind his final Sin, Petite Messe Solennelle. We can find many different styles in the 14 Volumes of Péchés, and Rossini uses different techniques, exploring all the possibilities of the piano. We have preludes, pieces telling a story like a melologue, canons, variations, and also some pieces in the style of Palestrina or Monteverdi for choir. Additionally, Rossini used text in the dialect of Venice, and in one instance even asked the pianist to sing like a parrot!

I believe that if you want to know Rossini well, you have to know his Péchés. They are a very important part of his creativity- a deafening silence! Rossini anticipates the 20th century in this repertoire, and it helps us to better understand Satie or Milhaud, futurism, and also Stravinsky. This is music of the future, and Rossini was perfectly aware of this.

Now that you have completed this full collection of Rossini piano works, what are your next musical aspirations?

In the next few months, Naxos will release my album with the great Italian cellist Enrico Dindo featuring the complete works for cello and piano by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, including world-premiere recordings. For future projects, I’m interested to explore more Italian repertoire for piano and orchestra and, aside from the more famous repertoire, also another love: Clementi, the father of the piano. Also, in the near future, I have several recitals featuring repertoire from Chopin and Rossini.

Discover Alessandro’s Chromoconcerto experience with this video below!