Luca Lione playing for Rome University in their splendid new venue,an important rationalist palace which is now part of INPS social services.

A programme that combined Beethoven with Schumann and Granados with Ginastera.
Schumann had written his fantasy and given it to Liszt to create funds for a monument to Beethoven in his home city of Bonn.
It is above all a deep lament for the love of his life Clara Wieck from whom he had been isolated by her wicked father …the piano teacher of both Clara and Robert.
The Andante Favori ,on the other hand,was written by Beethoven for his beloved Countess Josephine Brunsvik whose family considered Beethoven a ‘commoner’ whom she could never contemplate in marriage!
The Granados work from Goyescas,is the description of Love and Death which was unexpectedly to strike Granados and his wife when they both perished as he tried to save her from the water when their ship was torpedoed in the English Channel.
A haunting premonition with a tone poem full of ravishing beauty and dramatic virtuosistic eruptions.
A Beethoven played with all the grace and charm with which the composer had hoped to entice his lady friend.Played with a scrupulous attention to the composers indications and with character and kaleidoscopic colour as it led to the final beseechingly moving phrases.

In the Schumann Fantasy there was no doubt that this was a heartfelt lament for his future wife and mother of their eight children. https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/11/05/the-house-of-schumann-clara-wieck-piano-concerto-rana-pappano-triumph-at-s-cecilia-in-rome/
Luca played it with passionate conviction which came across so vividly in a performance that demonstrated their anguish.He led us on a journey that was shared with spectacular and moving participation allowing his red hot Latin blood full range to seduce and ravish.It may have been too loud too soon and some details overlooked but Schumann’s passion was shared by Luca in an all or nothing performance which certainly reached his audience today and was greeted by spontaneous applause after each movement.It just demonstrated so vividly this young man’s unusually communicative showmanship.
His extraordinary participation certainly passed the footlights – passa la ribalta -the dream of all great communicators.
The dark somber ruminations and transcendental outbursts and washes of notes in Granados were played with equal conviction and spectacular virtuosity allied to a deep poetic understanding .
It was the same overwhelming conviction that brought Ginastera’s Three Argentine dances vibrantly to life.The Dance of the Donosa Girl was particularly poignant with its chiselled beauty that really penetrated our hearts before the ‘Outlaw Cowboy’ strode across the keyboard with astonishing technical prowess that was at times breath taking.

Rachmaninov’s Etude Tableaux op 39 n.1 was Luca’s way of thanking this very attentive audience with cascades of notes that streaked up and down the Keyboard with great nervous energy and mastery.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/07/01/luca-lione-in-london-23rd-june-2022/

Domenica 13 novembre 2022 ore 19 Complesso Vittorio Locchi
(I concerti si tengono all’interno del Complesso, NON più nel cortile esterno)

Luca Lione, conclude gli studi di biennio ad indirizzo interpretativo – compositivo con la votazione di 110/110, lode e menzione d’onore, presso il Conservatorio “C. G. da Venosa” di Potenza sotto la guida del M. Vincenzo Marrone d’Alberti. Successivamente, si perfeziona a Colonia con la pianista americana Nina Tichman.
Risulta essere vincitore di oltre quaranta premi in concorsi pianistici nazionali, internazionali e recentemente ha ottenuto la medaglia d’oro al concorso Gran Prize Virtuoso di Bonn, la medaglia d’argento ai Global Music Awards in California ed è stato citato nel libro di Luca Ciammarughi “Da Benedetti Michelangeli alla Argerich” fra la “meglio gioventù” italiana.
La sua esperienza concertistica annovera recital in Italia , Germania, Austria, Belgio e Regno Unito.

Ha debuttato, in qualità di finalista del “Premio Internazionale Annarosa Taddei” con l’orchestra “Roma 3Orchestra” al Teatro di Villa Torlonia, eseguendo il Terzo Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra di L. v. Beethoven.
Di recente, inoltre, è stato pubblicato il suo primo album dedicato interamente alla figura di R. Schumann, edito dalla casa discografica giapponese “Da Vinci Classics”, il quale riceve lodevoli apprezzamenti dalla critica nazionale ed internazionale, meritando le 5 stelle sulla rinomata rivista musicale italiana “MUSICA” e lodevoli recensioni su “Pizzicato”e “PianoNews”.
Attualmente è Docente di Pianoforte Principale presso il Conservatorio di Musica “S. Giacomantonio” di Potenza.

The Andante favori was written between 1803 and 1804, and published in 1805. It was originally intended to be the second of the three movements of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata op 53 .A friend of Beethoven’s told him that the sonata was too long, for which he was terribly taken to task by the composer. But after quiet reflection Beethoven was convinced of the correctness of the criticism. The andante… was therefore excluded and in its place supplied the interesting Introduction to the rondo which it now has. A year after the publication of the sonata, the andante also appeared separately.It was composed as a musical declaration of love for Countess Josephine Brunsvik,but the Brunsvik family increased the pressure to terminate the relationship so she could not contemplate marrying Beethoven, a commoner.The reason for the title was given by Beethoven’s pupil Czerny, quoted in Thayer: “Because of its popularity (for Beethoven played it frequently in society) he gave it the title Andante favori (“favored Andante”).

Danzas Argentinas Op. 2, is a set of three dances for solo piano written in 1937 by Alberto Ginastera , one of the leading Latin American composers of the 20th century.The first piece, Danza del viejo boyero (“Dance of the Old Herdsman”), immediately strikes the ear as being odd. The reason is as simple as it is strange: the left hand plays only black notes, while the right plays only white notes. This means it is composed of two modes , with the right hand in C Major and the left in D♭ Major. Danza de la moza donosa (“Dance of the Donosa Girl”) is a gentle dance in 6/8 time. A piquant melody meanders its way through the first section, constantly creating and releasing tension through the use of chromatic inflections. The second section introduces a new melody, more assured of itself than the first.With directions such as furiosamente (“furiously”), violente (“violent”), mordento (“biting”), and salvaggio (“wild”), Ginastera left no doubt as how to play the third dance, Danza del gaucho matrero (“Dance of the Outlaw Cowboy”), should be performed. Ginastera makes use of gratuitous dissonance in this piece, opening it with a 12-tone ostinato and frequently using minor seconds to harmonize otherwise simple melodies

Goyescas, op 11, subtitled Los majos enamorados (The Gallants in Love), is a piano suite written in 1911 by Spanish composer Enrique Granados . It was inspired by the work of the Spanish artist Francisco Goya.The piano pieces have not been authoritatively associated with any particular paintings with two exceptions:

• El amor y la muerte (Love and death) shares its title with one of Goya’s prints from the series called Los capricious
• El pelele (The straw man) is one of Goya’s tapestry cartoons

The piano writing of Goyescas is highly ornamented and extremely difficult to master, requiring both subtle dexterity and great power. Some of them have a strong improvisational feel, the clearest example of this being the fifth piece, called El amor y la muerte (Love and Death). The suite is in seven episodes :Los requiebros (The Compliments)Coloquio en la reja (Conversation at the Window)El fandango de candil (Fandango by Candlelight)Quejas,o La Maja y el ruisenor (Complaint, or the Girl and the NightingaleEl Amor y la muerte (Balada) (Ballad of Love and Death)Epilogo: Serenata del espectro (Epilogue: Serenade to a Spectre)El pelele: Escena Goyesca (The Puppet: Goya Scene)

This piano suite was written in two books. Work on Goyescas began in 1909, and by 31 August 1910, the composer was able to write that he had composed “great flights of imagination and difficulty.” Granados himself gave the première of Book I at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona on 11 March 1911. He completed Book II in December 1911 and gave its first performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on 2 April 1914.El pelele (The Straw Man), subtitled Escena goyesca, is usually programmed as part of the Goyescas suite; Granados gave the première in the Teatre Principal at Terrassa on 29 March 1914.Such was the success of this work that he was encouraged to expand it. He wrote an opera based on the subject in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I forced the European premiere to be canceled. It was performed for the first time in New York City on 28 January 1916 and was very well received. Shortly afterwards, he was invited to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson before leaving New York.By accepting the recital invitation, caused him to miss his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a ship to England, where he boarded the passenger ferry SS Sussex for Dieppe , France. On the way across the English Channel, the Sussex was torpedoed by a German U boat. According to witness Daniel Sargent, Granados’s wife, Amparo, was too heavy to get into a lifeboat. Granados refused to leave her and positioned her on a small life raft on which she knelt and he clung. Both then drowned within sight of other passengers.However, according to a different account from another survivor, “”A survivor of the 1916 torpedo attack on a Cross channel ferry, Sussex, recognised Spanish composer Granados in a lifeboat, his wife in the water. Granados dived in to save her and perished.”The ship broke in two parts, and only one sank (along with 80 passengers). Ironically, the part of the vessel that contained his cabin did not sink and was towed to port, with most of the passengers, except for Granados and his wife, who were on the other side of the boat when it was hit. Granados and his wife left six children: Eduard (a musician), Solita, Enrique (a swimming champion), Víctor, Natalia, and Francisco.

The Fantasie in C, op 17, was written by Robert Schumann in 1836. It was revised prior to publication in 1839, when it was dedicated to Franz Liszt . Liszt in turn dedicated his B minor Sonata to Schumann .They are the two pinnacles of the Romantic piano repertoire

Its three movements are headed:

1. Durchaus fantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen; Im Legenden-Ton –
2. Mäßig. Durchaus energisch
3. Langsam getragen. Durchweg leise zu halten.

The piece has its origin in early 1836, when Schumann composed a piece entitled Ruines expressing his distress at being parted from his beloved Clara Wieck (later to become his wife). This later became the first movement of the Fantasy.Later that year, he wrote two more movements to create a work intended as a contribution to the appeal by Liszt for funds to erect a monument to Beethoven in his birthplace, Bonn.Schumann offered the work to the publisher Kirstner, suggesting that 100 presentation copies could be sold to raise money for the monument. Other contributions to the Beethoven monument fund included Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses^.

Schumann prefaced the work with a quote from Friedrich Schlegel:Durch alle Töne tönetIm bunten ErdentraumEin leiser Ton gezogenFür den, der heimlich lauschet.

(“Resounding through all the notes

In the earth’s colorful dream

There sounds a faint long-drawn note

For the one who listens in secret.”)

A phrase from Beethoven’s song cycle An die ferne Geliebte in the coda of the first movement was not acknowledged by Schumann, and apparently was not spotted until 1910.The text of the passage quoted is: Accept then these songs [beloved, which I sang for you alone]. Both the Schlegel stanza and the Beethoven quotation shows his sorrow at being separated from Clara . Schumann wrote to Clara: The first movement may well be the most passionate I have ever composed – a deep lament for you. They still had many tribulations to suffer before they finally married four years later.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.com/2022/07/01/luca-lione-in-london-23rd-june-2022/