Piano Recital: Ida Pelliccioli “Debussy and influences”

Ida Pelliccioli: “Debussy and influences”

Club Room, Friday 8th Oct, 6.30pm. Doors open at 6pm.

This programme aims to create echoes between the music of Debussy and the music of two composers that influenced him. On one hand, Rameau, which Debussy described as the pinnacle of the French tradition. On the other hand, Albeniz, as an example of how Debussy found an important source of inspiration in reimagining the music of foreign lands.

Rameau - Suite in A minor from the “Nouvelles Suites pour clavecin”.

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Les Trois Mains

Fanfarinette

La Triomphante

Gavotte et six doubles

While the keyboard music of J. S. Bach, Handel, and Scarlatti draws the attention of modern pianists, that of their French contemporary Jean-Philippe Rameau is rarely heard today. While Rameau is famous for his operas, he was also, with François Couperin, one of the exponents of the French harpsichord school. He composed about sixty pieces for harpsichord, organized in three books, the first being published in 1706, the second in 1724 and the third, Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin, in 1729/30. This works were not titled “Suites” by Rameau himself, even though he grouped them by tonality, as it was the use at his time. In the Suite in A minor, Rameau writes both dance movements and what we call “pieces de caractère” – pieces of character. The final part is a Gavotte and 6 doubles (or variations), the most famous part of this work, that seems to directly quote the “Aria and variations” from Haendel’s Suite in D minor.

Debussy - Hommage à Rameau (Images – Book 1, L.110)

Images is a suite of six compositions for solo piano. They were published in two books, each consisting of three pieces. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, the second in 1907. The second piece of Book 1 is a “sarabande” honoring the memory of Rameau. With this piece Debussy didn’t try to make a pastiche of baroque music: he rather wanted to create a personal piece that would be in the continuity of this French tradition of elegance and refinement. Choosing a slow 3 beats dance movement (the sarabande), that leaves space to silences and resonances, was also a way for him to educate the audience of his time on how to listen to music. At a time of salon performances and sparkling short pieces, the public had lost this capacity to listen carefully to the sounds, one of the reasons the music of Rameau was forgotten for almost two centuries and brought back by composer like Saint-Saens and Debussy.

Albeniz - La Vega – Suite of the Alhambra n°1

Albeniz was known as the “composer of suites”. He wrote three Suites Antiguas, two Suites Españolas, the suite Cantos de España and Iberia. This form of writing was ideal for salon performances, as each suite was formed by short pieces full of color that helped to establish his reputation as a fine pianist and composer. In 1889, while on a UK tour, Albeniz found an English sponsor that would change completely his work conditions, giving him more time to dedicate himself to longer works, which enabled him to develop his own style. La Vega (1897) marks this turning point, as it is one of the longest compositions he has ever written for the piano and the first where we can sense an evolution in his style, pre announcing his major work Iberia. It was meant to be part of a larger work Suite of the Alhambra n°1 but was never finished nor orchestrated (which was also planned by Albeniz). Having returned to Paris in 1894, Albeniz performed the piece in a Parisian salon in front of Fauré, Dukas, Ravel and Debussy who, after listening to it, would have said “I have to go to Spain!”

Debussy - La Puerta del Vino – from Préludes, Book II

- Evening in Granada – Estampes, L.100

- Masques, L.105

Three of the pieces chosen in this programme are linked by the same element of inspiration: the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. As we have seen, La Vega was also named "Alhambra Suite", La Puerta del Vino (the Wine Gate) refers to the gate of the same Palace in Granada. The primary source of inspiration for this piece was a picture postcard of the gate, sent to Debussy by fellow composer, Manuel de Falla. And finally Soirée à Grenade (1903) uses the Arabic scale and mimics guitar strumming to evoke images of this same land and heritage. Masques (1904) has also been qualified as “Spanish inspired”, and completes this selection of re-creations of this land that Debussy never visited. His Spain was a mind-made land, a land of the imagination.

Ida Pelliccioli CV

Ida Pelliccioli was born in Bergamo, Italy. She studied at the Nice Conservatoire de Région and at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris - Alfred Cortot in the class of Serguei Markarov, Unesco Artist for Peace. During her studies, Ida Pelliccioli was awarded several scholarships, amongst them, one from the Zygmunt Zaleski Foundation and one from Fondation Albert Roussel.

Ida Pelliccioli participated in number of master-classes, among others with Jean-Claude Pennetier, Gerard Wyss and received a double diploma in interpretation and pedagogy, at the École Normale in Paris. She received artistic guidance from Norma Fisher who teaches at the Royal College of Music in London, Stephen Gutman, and she is one of the rare pianists to have received guidance from the cuban concert pianist Jorge Luis Prats.

Ida chose to avoid the international competition circuit and, before becoming a full-time pianist, received a double master diploma at the Sorbonne University - in Italian Literature and in Ancient Greek History, specializing for the latter in the practice of music during the Hellenistic period.

Ida has been performing throughout Europe and Canada. During the 2021/22 Season, she made her debut in Serbia, Luxembourg, Ireland and Romania. She will also debut in Switzerland in 2023 and Malta in 2024. In February 2018, she gave a solo recital in Milan under the patronage of Yamaha Italy. Ida shows a great interest in contemporary music and she will premiere works from the following composers in 2022 – Raffaele Bellafronte and Jean-Luc Gillet.

Ida has always been opened to other forms of art and collaborations. She appeared on screen, playing the role of a pianist, for the american TV Series “Find me in Paris” – Season 1 and 2 (2017/2018) and the french one “Munch” (2018). In 2019, she has been casted to double the role of the pianist in the short movie „Quand on ne sait pas voler” directed by Thomas Keumurian and produced by FILMO.

From September 2022, she will start to collaborate with Berlin-Tokyo Quartet, performing a quintet programme with them. In 2021/2022 Ida also took up a teaching position at Paris Conservatoire du 8ème arrondissement.

Host or Publisher The Scottish Arts Club