 L’altiste Matteo Amadasi se consacre depuis 2020 à la redécouverte de la compositrice américaine Amy Beach en étudiant les manuscrits de ses œuvres conservés à la Bibliothèque de l’Université du New Hampshire. Ici il a choisi de transcrire pour son instrument des pièces pour violon et piano. De sa formation autodidacte en étudiant les traités et les œuvres des grands maîtres du Classicisme et du Romantisme, Beach se forgea un style romantique personnel. La Sonate (1896) qui constitue le cœur du programme en est un parfait exemple avec ses mouvements contrastés et habilement structurés à l’écriture savamment travaillée. L’œuvre ne manque pas de charme ni de caractère allant du lyrisme mélodieux tant sensible que fougueux de l’allegro initial, de l’habile et pétillante écriture fuguée du scherzo, de la touchante et délicate gravité plaintive du largo et ses élans passionnés jusqu’au discours enflammé de l’allegro final. Quatre pièces de genre encadrent la Sonate de belle manière entre rêverie, romance, invocation et autre lento espressivo avec leur lyrisme sensible, apaisant et mélancolique. Le registre plus grave de l’alto par rapport au violon apporte des couleurs chaudes et enrobantes à l’élégante musicalité de ces œuvres. (Laurent Mineau) ...This was my first encounter with the music of Amy Beach, an American pianist and composer of the early 1900s. I was thunderstruck by it. I asked fellow European and American musicians, pianists, conductors, soloists and musicologists who gravitate around my Theater (Teatro alla Scala, Milano) if they had any information on her, but to no avail. No one knew her. Some had heard her name, but no one had actually listened to her compositions. Today I can say that Amy Beach is almost unknown in America. I can also say that she is unknown in Europe, given the caliber of the musicians I talked to about her, and the fact that they hadn’t heard of her. Starting with manuscripts requested from the University of New Hampshire, I began transcribing four pieces and a sonata, originally written for Violin and Cello and Piano, into a version for Viola and Piano. I discovered that, not only the music, but also the incredible life of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach (that is how she signed her compositions) is a beautiful novel that remained locked in a drawer all this time. In fact, I have every intention of reopening that drawer through this CD and through the musical edition that printed my transcriptions for Viola and Piano. I believe that the instrument of the Viola and its alto key have given a new color to this music, enhancing it, but never altering its true essence. Born with this CD is a project of popularization and knowledge of Amy Beach's compositions and life story, a story and music that are at once incredibly modern and of other times. (Matteo Amadasi)
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