Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Tre danze antiche
Preludi autunnali
Armenia
Risonanze
I minuetti di Ca'Tiepolo
Cinque studi per domani
Three pieces

Aldo Orvieto, piano

Après un premier volume paru en 2019 (STR 37133), l’émérite Aldo Orvieto poursuit l’enregistrement d’une intégrale Malipiero (1882-1973) sur piano Fazioli, dont quelques pages inédites au disque. C’est l’occasion de réaliser que le compositeur italien, bien qu’ayant approuvé le rejet d’un système diatonique "soutenu artificiellement par des réactionnaires et des boutiquiers" (1918), n’est pas ennemi du pastiche… La plus ancienne page du programme, Trois pièces, est une sorte de petite suite qu’il écrit au début du siècle, après avoir quitté le conservatoire de Vienne pour celui de sa Venise natale. Quatre opus appartiennent à une décennie sombre, marquée par la guerre. Oublions "Trois danses antiques" (1910) et "Arménie" (1917), peu novateurs, pour saluer "Préludes d’automne" (1914) et "Résonances" (1918). Tous deux offrent trois premiers mouvements mélancoliques, héritiers de Debussy et traversés de sons russes (Scriabine, Stravinski), avant un final bondissant (Satie) voire sauvage (Mossolov). Les "menuets de la Maison Tiepolo" (1932) pourrait porter la signature de Scarlatti ou de Clementi. Enfin, "Cinq études pour demain" (1959) confirme l’impression d’un compositeur qui s’est cherché longtemps sans vraiment se trouver. (Laurent Bergnach)

Within the context of the wide and multifaceted creative activity of Gian Francesco Malipiero (Venice, 1882-Treviso, 1973), piano production represents a marginal branch, or at least one that was developed less systematically. However, there are about thirty titles – spread over more than sixty years – in which the most typical forms of Malipiero’s language find perfect expression: from the melancholy restlessness of the first works to the clear expressive intensity of the last ones. Malipiero is not a pianist – in his youth he half-heartedly studied the violin and then for some time the bassoon – but the piano will always be his working instrument. In the large studio on the first floor of the Asolo house, surrounded by a vast library, a grand piano from the FIP (Fabbrica Italiana Pianoforti) will be his companion for a long time. “Pianists who perform my piano works are rare. Perhaps they feel that the piano does not love me. However, I bear no grudge against this strange enemy of mine, on the contrary, I am very much in love with certain piano sounds, with their brightness. I understand the poetry of the keyboard and the vibrations of the most complete sound organism, but acrobatic virtuosity sickens me.” The result, however, is an imaginative and coherent world, one of the most original and unique of the first half of the twentieth century in Italy.