Pietro Delle Chiaie - Pietro Delle Chiaie: Promenade (Seven Musical Tableaux Based on Piano Improvisations) (2021) [Hi-Res]

“Promenade”: sounds, timbres, colours, gestures of the heart, of the mind and of the art of piano playing. All of this but also so much more transpires in this series of pieces that make up this precious work of improvisation at the piano, by Pietro Delle Chiaie.
Music born from the curiosity and excitement of trying a new piano that recently arrived at the Auditorium in Velletri; not far from Frascati, the pianist’s hometown, and recorded impromtu. The result is the sum of many elements that express Pietro
delle Chiaie’s great gift of the art of improvisation at is bestest.
A gift that has roots nonetheless, in research and study, life experiences (both good and bad) and the joys and sorrows that form the existence of every human being, but which, in this sensitive artist, find expression in this disc. Improvisation, in fact, in classical music but not only, is not the exclusive result of one’s inspiration, or of a romantic and difficult to delineate illumination, but it comes from the profound knowledge of harmony, melody, rhythm and of the compositional structures that are typical of particular eras and styles. This knowledge, which I would also call craftsmanship (in the true sense of the word) passes into the hands, or rather into the fingers, of the pianist who, mindful of infinite experiences (scales, arpeggios, jumps, repeated chords, dynamics and so on towards real and infinite paraphernalia of technical and stylistic instruments) translate onto the piano keyboard with confidence, but totally incognizant, naked and defenceless, driven by everything they know and have lived yet defenceless and very close to the possibility of failure, in the stupendous, exalting and terribly vulnerable act, at risk of creating… creating a unique, unrepeatable but necessarily and deliberately beautiful and important “hic et nunc”; a unique child of many parents: mind, heart, hands, study, genius, place, circumstances, people, loves, sufferings and ultimately, of re-living a life as it has been to that moment.
Pietro delle Chiaie gives us all that with this music, a sum of everything that has very deep roots but that materialize for a relatively short time, the time of this record. His improvisations immediately transport us to familiar musical areas (sometimes, in fact, we can identify stylistic forms and sounds typical of an era or similar to those of a specific composer), but at the same time everything is new, never heard before and saved during its creation but also, at the same time, saved as it dies, from inanimate microphones! We are given a gift that makes us dream, gives us joy and sadness, lightens our souls, enriches us and is never tedious.
It starts with a long walk, a Promenade, as in a day with bad but very changeable weather… while walking you see things that change colour and appearance, often all in the space of a few minutes, which arouse different impressions and reminiscences.
The next piece is also reminiscent, A Letter to Schubert, one of the three pieces in which the pianist pays homage to three of his most beloved classical composers, Schubert, Mozart and Debussy. A well-known Schubertian page initiates an improvisation that reveals a sweet and sentimental affection. The hands improvise, driven by the ideas that the great composer left us on this admirable page, but also motivated by what this beautiful music has aroused in the pianist … and so the improvisation takes on all the Schubertian colours and movements, but it is also progeny of the sensations that this written music awakens in the interpreter at that moment, and in that place, as we said!
As if lulled by gentle waves of a sea slightly moved by a light and refreshing breeze, we find ourselves in “Barcarola” and our “barcarolo”(boatman) happily whistles a carefree motif enhanced by variations and, as if taken over by birdsong, jumps to the high octaves and crystalline sounds of the piano then from there goes back in trills and scales that look like splashes of water on the walls of our boat … and at the end, unconsciously, as if almost asleep, with a slight bob we are awakened… and disembark!
“Festa in Paese” … everyone runs to the big fête, attracted by the sound of church-bells, people wearing their Sunday-best sing a childish jingle, as they dance in a circle, fast and overwhelmed by the song … a moment of rest to catch one’s breath and slowly the dance begins again, this time with heavy feet that beat the ground hard with a certain restlessness, then shortly after, as if in an intimate moment of sweetness between mother and child, the calm returns and the party ends with a few final fireworks!
In “Debussy Landscape” many of the great composer’s notes resonate in a mixture of haze, lights, dancing fountains, slow footsteps and the sounds of cathedral bells engulfed in darker and deeper waters! Here the pianist enjoys the beautiful reverberance of the magnificent instrument in the room, the deep vibrations of the medium and low register that release warm, powerful and mellow sounds, full of autumnal and humid atmospheres.
“Come on Pietro … I’m hungry, let’s go to lunch!” (these were literally my words that day!) and so, in that mood, a morning of improvisations in Velletri ends, with “Lunch with Mozart”; another tribute to one of the great loves of our interpreter!

Liner Notes © Romeo Ciuffa