The inspiration behind this programme is the forgotten music of Spanish composer from Sevilla, Manuel Blasco de Nebra (1750-1784). The heir to Scarlatti in many respects, he was moreover a composer well aware of what was happening elsewhere in Europe in the 1770s. When he died his sisters sold an impressive collection of 1833 pieces for harpsichord, organ and pianoforte – 172 pieces being his own works, the rest were pieces by German, Italian and French composers. His expressive world is far more searching than Scarlatti, a quality that sometimes reminds us of the music of Mozart and Haydn and pre announces Schubert and even Chopin.
Scarlatti’s 555 keyboard sonatas are single movements, mostly in binary form, some in early sonata form, and mostly written for harpsichord or the earliest pianofortes. Some display harmonic audacity in their use of discords, and unconventional modulations to remote keys.
Sonata K.22 is the 22nd of Scarlatti's 30 earliest Sonatas, published in London in late 1738 with the title “Essercizi per gravicembalo”. Although he qualified them as “exercises” he labeled the individual pieces “Sonatas ”which for him seems to indicate a one-movement composition in binary form. Scarlatti treated the harpsichord in a highly idiomatic manner and with this first set he made a technical musical contribution and gave innovative idea to fellow composers of the time. The main novelty of these sonatas consists in patterns of brilliant figurations, arpeggios, wide leaps, repeated notes and hand-crossing as it can be observed in Sonata K.22 which suggests it must have been written for a two-manual harpsichord.
i Fantasia, ii Fugue
Fantasy No. 1 with fugue in C major is a piece of music for solo piano composed by Mozart in 1782 which he wrote down at the insistence of his wife Constanze (Mozart usually improvised fugues; the title “Fantasia” is not Mozart's and is misleading in view of the obviously baroque structure of the piece). The work was written at a time in Mozart's life when his preoccupation with the polyphonic techniques of the Baroque era had triggered a lasting creative crisis, forcing him to come to terms individually with his great idols Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel.
Both K. 396 and K. 394 Fantasias were written in 1782, even if K.396 was first published in 1802 when Maximilian Stadler completed the 28 bars fragment manuscript that Mozart hadn’t finished. The title “Fantasia” comes from him and seems appropriate. Both works, from the same period, were written at a time when Mozart was having a Baroque moment, discovering the music of J.S. Bach and Handel. In a letter to his father he mentioned that he was collecting Bach’s fugues. He even transcribed some of them for string quartet. Mozart took to the style immediately and earned a reputation for his virtuosic keyboard improvisations. These two pieces, written in a free form, as “fantasias” offer, or so we imagine, a sense of Mozart the improviser, and the Fantasia and Fugue K.394 was one of the results from his interest in counterpoint.
Sometimes called the “Spanish Scarlatti”, Manuel Blasco de Nebra has been forgotten for two centuries, before the first manuscripts and editions of his remaining 30 keyboard pieces were brought to light. Not much is known about his short life. His father was the organist of Seville Cathedral before he took over the position in 1778. Renowned for his excellent sight-reading and playing of the organ, harpsichord and fortepiano as well as his improvising skills, his works evoke Scarlatti’s concise forms – he also uses the binary form, usually an adagio followed by a fast finale – and extraordinary power of invention.
i No. 1 in E flat minor, ii No. 2 in E flat major, iii No. 3 in C major
F.Schubert, as Blasco de Nebra, lived in a period of musical evolution, and he explored the connecting way between Classicism and Romanticism, never reaching a full reconciliation of the two, as this wasn’t his artistic aim. Often added to the “First Viennese School” – originally listing Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven only – Schubert (1797-1828) is actually the only Vienna-born member of this group. Vienna, a central musical hub at this time, as was Seville for Spain during the life of Blasco de Nebra.
Ida Pelliccioli - Piano
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.
Piano
31 October 2024
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