ENCOUNTERS Giuseppe Bruno Pianist, conductor, composer October 2016

Looking at your background, one can only be impressed by the multitude of your musical activities: pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and even executive: for 4 years you were Director of La Spezia Conservatory. Among them, is there an aspect you prefer and that represents you most completely? Piano and Composition were the first paths I followed during my studies. Rather unusually, I actually obtained a diploma in Composition one year before that in Piano. After that, I moved from Florence Conservatoire to Milan, where I took Conducting. At that time, I was mostly thinking of becoming a composer, but quite suddenly I started to play a lot of chamber music, which I found wonderful. I also had the opportunity to take lessons from Paolo Bordoni, then one of the leading Italian pianists, who gave me a new view of playing and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a pianist. So I started practicing more and broadening my repertoire, until I got the feeling that I could do it The choice was definitely made in 1987, when the late Spiros Argiris called me to the Spoleto Festival, where I performed a huge chamber repertoire for six summers, together with some of the best European and American musicians (strings, wind and singers). Now, I can call myself a pianist mostly because I practice the instrument every day, although I still conduct orchestras three or four times a year, quite often as pianist-conductor. About teaching, I like it very much, it's something I've done since I was 20, and I still do it with pleasure. Being Director of a Conservatory was quite different: for six years I felt as if I was in the Army, trying to do my best but fighting every day with the absurd rules of Italian schools. People should know that our for 16 years our Conservatoires have been in the midst of a transition from the 1933 “Conservatori del Regno� to modern Universities of Music, a goal we may never be able to fully reach. For this reason, and for the excessive burden of bureaucracy, I think I'm done as a Director....although of course there were moments of satisfaction, especially when I could think that a good student was going to have better career prospects because of something I did.
 
ANN e CHUM fort S T Piano R st. e E ROB ate per Violin2o1 - no. 3 Op. Po
p. 1 Son Le Tre 05 - no. 2 O .1 p O 1 no.
gni
o Bolo
Albert
p
no pe Bru
Giuse
iolino rte gni, v fo o Bolo piano Albert pe Bruno, p Giuse
8 SH 02
.it
on ollecti evac
.sh www
Robert Schumann Sonatas for violin and piano
Alberto Bologni and Giuseppe Bruno have the measure of these works. Their performances are engaging, varied and above all enjoyable. Gavin Dixon
Apart from Paolo Bordoni, are there any other teachers you want to mention, teachers who moulded your musical development? I think I learned something from every teacher I had, since I started studying music way back in 1968. Pasquale and Elda Izzo, in Carrara, gave me the feeling that music was a beautiful, serious thing. Pina Telara put me in relation with the world of performing musicians. Piero Luigi Zangelmi, a really great composer, helped me to grow up in a truly musical way. Alessandro Specchi strengthened my technique and gave me the possibility to perform with professional musicians as a teenager. Gianluigi Gelmetti, Gianpiero Taverna and Leopold Hager let me understand the meaning of conducting, and how one can prepare for it. Franco Rossi (Quartetto Italiano) and Piernarciso Masi, along with Franco Gulli, Enrica Cavallo and Sandro Materassi, led me to understand better the beauty and the difficulties of chamber music.... I owe something to them all, sometimes a lot. I remember, years ago, you told to me that one of your most beloved composers is Gustav Mahler, of whose 4th Symphony you wrote a transcription for two pianos and mezzo-soprano. Could tell me a little about this great attempt (which I hope we may have a recording of one day)? When and why did you decide to work on this Symphony? I started working on Mahler's 4th when I was about 15, studying Composition with Maestro Piero Luigi Zangelmi. At that time, I arranged most of the first movement, then I forgot it for more than 20 years. Around 1997 I took it up again and decided to complete it, doing it in a few months. The work has since been performed many times, always with my ex-wife, Elisabetta Tavani as partner at the other piano. The soprano (or mezzosoprano, or child) part was first performed by Enrica Bassano, who recorded it with us in 2000, then by Monica Benvenuti. This wasn't been my only attempt at Mahler: some years later, I did a transcription for violin, cello and piano of the 3rd movement, "Purgatorio", of the unfinished 10th Symphony. This transcription (performed many times with Alberto Bologni, violin and Vittorio Ceccanti, cello) has been published by Universal Edition, Vienna. I hope I will be able to record it one day!
a tribute
to
AGNER HARD W
RIC
P
y TIONS b NSCRIP and TRA orth w ES d SI in Kl TA rl N Ka Bülow IANO FA Busoni von ccio szt Hans Cramer Ferru Franz Li s oli ig Loui rea Nic Carl Taus igi Maio And Lu
, piano
e Bruno Giusepp Sh 066
a tribute to
Richard Wagner O
DI PE VER GIUSEP ANDS H O FOUR N PIAN O S FROM
N RIPTIO TRANSC PIANO
lcepina -
Paolo Va
(photo by
Gi
uno useppe Br
sta) Olga Co
IC ARIA PERAT
NO PE BRU GIUSEP CEPINA L A V O PAOL PIANO
Giuseppe Verdi on piano four hands
S
And add it to my site, of course, I would be very proud to include it in my catalogue! Few music lovers, I suppose, have ever listened to this movement of the unfinished 10th Symphony. Which are the contemporary composers you particularly love and whose music you are interested in performing (both as pianist and as conductor)? There are quite a few composers I’m interested in, although in this moment of musical history it’s difficult (in Italy at least) to propose contemporary works in concert. It was easier a quarter of century ago, when 1 played a lot of new chamber music at Spoleto Festival, like Ligeti’s Trio for horn, violin and piano. Among the great ones, I hope to be able to play more by Messiaen, in my opinion the most important composer of the second half of the 20th century. Among the younger ones, I am very interested in British composers like Peter Fribbins and Peter Seabourne, and have performed many works by the Italian (now American) Roberto Scarcella Perino. I deeply love the piano and chamber music of my mentor Piero Luigi Zangelmi, besides having played and recorded some good works by Andrea Nicoli, a colleague of mine at the Puccini Conservatoire. As a conductor, I have performed many works on stage and in concert. A beautiful one was “Parole tissées” by Lutoslawski, which I did in Lomza (Poland) in 2013, but I wish to mention some important contemporary Italian composers I have conducted, like Marco Betta, Arrigo Benvenuti and again Piero Zangelmi.


BEETHOVEN
ror to N.5 Empe
Piano Concer
herzo
bl Rhapsody in GERSHWIN
ue
nte et Sc BOZZA Anda
rtet xophone Qua ExclusIVe Sa piano o, un Br e Giusepp
Beethoven Gershwin Bozza with ExclusIve Saxophone Quartet
FRANZ LIS
ZT presents
N
HUMAN VERDI SC ETHOVEN BE ER 1 l. EB W tions - Vo CHOPIN o Transcrip
an
complete Pi
Giuseppe
o Bruno, pian
FRANZ LISZT presents Chopin Weber Beethoven Verdi Schumann complete Piano Transcriptions - Vol 1
Are there any suggestions you would give to a young student who wants to start studying music? In particular, are there concrete opportunities for a musical graduate to find a steady job? Very difficult to answer…..I can only express an opinion, built on my experience. The preparation of a young musician must be excellent, both as a player (or composer or conductor) and as a cultivated man or woman. The mantra could sound: “Be ready for the international market, in order to profit from job opportunities everywhere. Be awake, practice, learn languages. Try to specialize, but don’t forget that you have to be good at performing in all ways (solo, chamber ensemble, orchestra), and be aware of new technologies…. And, most important, don’t give up! If you love music and practice seriously, something good will come….” (My God, I’m patronizing…)
Which are your forthcoming musical projects? There are many…..this fall, I intend to do the editing of the new Liszt CD for Sheva (Eroica), and to complete that of Liszt’s violin and piano works with Alberto Bologni. Then there’ll be some nice trips , to Florida (Rhapsody in blue), to England with Alberto and later to Poland. A big project is the Faust Symphony by Liszt which I’m going to play in the two-piano version with my friend and wonderful pianist Vincenzo Maxia, for the “Concerti della Normale” in Pisa, one of the most important Italian concert series. I also intend to promote the Strauss CD recorded with Valentina Renesto and Monica Benvenuti, which I consider a good and very unuisual project, featuring piano, voice and sax: another step in my already substantial collaboration with SHEVA…
R IC H A R D AN
STRAUSS
PO RT RA IT UN US UA L
So pr an o
I BE NV EN UT e M ON IC A O Sa xo ph on A RE NE ST VA LE NT IN O Pi an o UN BR GI US EP PE
RICHARD STRAUSS Un unusual Portrat