Francesco Piemontesi endlessly fascinated with the alchemy of the piano

While repertoire and technique are obviously important for any pianist, Francesco Piemontesi has put a particular emphasis on those more elusive qualities such as touch, timbre and phrasing that come together to shape the effect and meaning of an interpretation.

Indeed, the Swiss-Italian keyboardist has been so consumed with such concerns that he spearheaded a documentary titled “The Alchemy of the Piano,” which debuted in Lucerne in August and will next be seen in Munich on Nov. 14 as part of a series of European screenings. (No U.S. theatrical dates have been scheduled yet.)

“The fact of playing piano and making music has often to do with combining elements where you think they wouldn’t fit together in order create something special,” the Berlin-based Piemontesi said. “You start learning an instrument and you think if you do A, it will sound A, and if you do B, it will sound B, but then you have to learn at certain point to make things sound in a different way or present them in such a way that you will confound all expectations and also create magic moments.”

Chicago Symphony Orchestra audiences will have chance to hear Piemontesi’s own alchemy of the piano during a Nov. 14-16 set of concerts with guest conductor Marek Janowski when he serves as soloist in Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2. “It’s one of my favorite concertos, very honestly,” said the pianist, who has performed it several times previously with Janowski, who has held many posts, including two tenures as chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic.

Unlike the longer concertos of Brahms or Rachmaninov, Piemontesi describes the Second Liszt Concerto as more “condensed,” running about 25 minutes. “It’s very operatic,” he said. “You have a feeling that you have a lot of characters, a little bit in the Mozart idiom of opera, and a lot of chamber music with the orchestra. So you have this huge cello solo in the middle section, and you have a lot of things with the winds. Often when I program this piece, and I know I’m playing with a great orchestra, as Chicago is, I’m very happy to do so, because the soloists in the orchestra are so incredible that you can really make something special out of it.”

These concerts come a little more than a year after the release of his most recent recording, which features Liszt’s Transcendental Études and Piano Sonata in B Minor. Piemontesi had long performed the Liszt Sonata, and he used his off time during the COVID-19 shutdown to learn the Études. “I had wanted to learn these pieces for a long time, and I knew having four or five or six months of time would allow me to do that,” he said. Just before the last day of recording, which took place at the studios of RSI, a public broadcasting organization serving Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland, Switzerland lifted many of its pandemic protocols and about 120 people were able to attend the session. It was the first time both he and the audience had taken part in a public concert in months; Piemontesi believes the sense of relief is palpable on that selection.

“Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is one of my favorite concertos, very honestly. It’s very operatic. You have a feeling that you have a lot of characters, a little bit in the Mozart idiom of opera, and a lot of chamber music with the orchestra." — Francesco Piemontesi

Born in 1983 in Locarno, Switzerland, Piemontesi won prizes in several competitions, including third place at the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and was a prestigious BBC New Generation Artist in 2009-11. He has since become of the classical world’s most respected pianists, with nine albums to his credit and a lengthy resume of performances with many top orchestras and conductors.   

The idea for “The Alchemy of the Piano” struck Piemontesi during the COVID-19 shutdown after listening to a 2018 Marston Records release of a then-newly discovered recording of Sergei Rachmaninov performing a solo piano version of his orchestral work, Symphonic Dances, at an impromptu gathering in 1940. Though better known now as a composer, Rachmaninov was one of the most celebrated and traveled pianists of the 20th century. “I thought his playing was so miraculous,” Piemontesi said. “And it had so many elements which were difficult to grasp, and that difficulty interested me a lot.”

Piemontesi spoke to a filmmaker friend, Jan Schmidt-Garre, about his reaction to the Rachmaninov recording, and the director immediately expressed an interest in making a film that explored the intangible qualities that make up great piano performances. Schmidt-Garre believed this subject had gotten little attention, compared with, say, the much-chronicled love story between two of classical music’s most famous figures, Clara and Robert Schumann. “We have enough of that,” Piemontesi said.

So Schmidt-Garre and Piemontesi agreed to work together on what became “The Alchemy of the Piano,” talking to famed keyboardists like Alfred Brendel, Stephen Kovacevich and Maria João Pires, who have given considerable thought during their long careers to the questions raised in the film. “It has been a wonderful journey,” Piemontesi said. “It lasted about 2½ years, and I’m very happy with the results.”

One of the keyboardists interviewed for the film was someone with whom he has had a close connection, Alfred Brendel. Now 93, one of the most revered pianists of his generation, Brendel reached out to Piemontesi after hearing the young pianist play and asked him to come and study with him. “It was a little bit like Christmas,” Piemontesi said. “It just came out of nowhere.” At the tail end of Brendel’s performing career around 2008-09, Piemontesi began staying at the elder pianist’s London home sometimes for a week at a time, an approach that was very different than more typical one-hour weekly lessons. “I could really see how he was living, how he was thinking,” Piemontesi said.

The two went to art shows together, and Brendel regularly played vintage recordings that he admired by artists like the Busch Quartet and Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer, including some that were not commercially available. “He was always saying, ’listen to this. Isn’t this incredible? Listen to that phrase.’ Just by saying things like this, you start to understand the frame of mind of someone.”

These discussions opened the younger pianist’s eyes to elements of pianism he had never considered before. “I think this whole immersion was really something very special,” Piemontesi said, noting that he still tries to go Brendel’s home and play for him at least once a year.

Another teacher not included in the documentary, yet who was very important to Piemontesi, is French pianist Cécile Ousset, now 88. “Cécile Ousset had a very atypical career and performed a lot in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including the States, coming several times to Chicago. Her career started relatively late, and then when she was at the top it, she had to stop because of arthritis,” Piemontesi said.

He was 14 when he attended one of her concerts at a venue near Locarno and was stunned by what he heard. “I had all of these things I wanted to say but I didn’t know how to say them technically,” he said. But she clearly did. He approached her after the concert, and she told him to send a cassette of his playing. Piemontesi soon heard from her that she would be happy to work with him, so he began traveling to her home near Nice for lessons.

She carefully explained how the studies would work. The first year would be focused on revamping his technique, using 50 or 60 exercises she developed. “Until now, I have not found a single passage that I cannot solve with the help of those exercises,” Piemontesi said. Then, they would begin applying his new-found technique to performance pieces, and finally, she should would travel with him to some of his concerts so she could help him negotiate the acoustics in the halls he encountered. “We have to think of people sitting in the 25th row and to try and get the sound across. And in this, she was amazing,” he said. And once he was ultimately ready, she even set him up with the agency that represented her. “I’m sure we wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for her,” he said.

Brendel and Ousset are two are very different kinds of pianists, and those differences were partly what drew Piemontesi to them. “With Brendel, I was fascinated with the style, the weight of history, a certain sound, and with Cécile, I was fascinated with the way she could use her body to produce music. I don’t think the two aspects are contradictory.”

At one point, he was was studying with both pianists at the same time, and he was struck with how they would zero in on the same problematic passages in his playing, but they would offer alternative pathways to a solution. “One was talking about the sound, and the other the technical approach,” he said. “You learn to know and to love other approaches that aren’t your own. So the big challenge was to integrate all this and make it my own.” 

One of the keyboardists interviewed for the film was someone with whom he has had a close connection, Alfred Brendel. Now 93, one of the most revered pianists of his generation, Brendel reached out to Piemontesi after hearing the young pianist play and asked him to come and study with him. “It was a little bit like Christmas,” Piemontesi said. “It just came out of nowhere.” At the tail end of Brendel’s performing career around 2008-09, Piemontesi began staying at the elder pianist’s London home sometimes for a week at a time, an approach that was very different than more typical one-hour weekly lessons. “I could really see how he was living, how he was thinking,” Piemontesi said.

The two went to art shows together, and Brendel regularly played vintage recordings that he admired by artists like the Busch Quartet and Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer, including some that were not commercially available. “He was always saying, ’listen to this. Isn’t this incredible? Listen to that phrase.’ Just by saying things like this, you start to understand the frame of mind of someone.”

These discussions opened the younger pianist’s eyes to elements of pianism he had never considered before. “I think this whole immersion was really something very special,” Piemontesi said, noting that he still tries to go Brendel’s home and play for him at least once a year.

Another teacher not included in the documentary, yet who was very important to Piemontesi, is French pianist Cécile Ousset, now 88. “Cécile Ousset had a very atypical career and performed a lot in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including the States, coming several times to Chicago. Her career started relatively late, and then when she was at the top it, she had to stop because of arthritis,” Piemontesi said.

He was 14 when he attended one of her concerts at a venue near Locarno and was stunned by what he heard. “I had all of these things I wanted to say but I didn’t know how to say them technically,” he said. But she clearly did. He approached her after the concert, and she told him to send a cassette of his playing. Piemontesi soon heard from her that she would be happy to work with him, so he began traveling to her home near Nice for lessons.

She carefully explained how the studies would work. The first year would be focused on revamping his technique, using 50 or 60 exercises she developed. “Until now, I have not found a single passage that I cannot solve with the help of those exercises,” Piemontesi said. Then, they would begin applying his new-found technique to performance pieces, and finally, she should would travel with him to some of his concerts so she could help him negotiate the acoustics in the halls he encountered. “We have to think of people sitting in the 25th row and to try and get the sound across. And in this, she was amazing,” he said. And once he was ultimately ready, she even set him up with the agency that represented her. “I’m sure we wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for her,” he said.

Brendel and Ousset are two are very different kinds of pianists, and those differences were partly what drew Piemontesi to them. “With Brendel, I was fascinated with the style, the weight of history, a certain sound, and with Cécile, I was fascinated with the way she could use her body to produce music. I don’t think the two aspects are contradictory.”

At one point, he was was studying with both pianists at the same time, and he was struck with how they would zero in on the same problematic passages in his playing, but they would offer alternative pathways to a solution. “One was talking about the sound, and the other the technical approach,” he said. “You learn to know and to love other approaches that aren’t your own. So the big challenge was to integrate all this and make it my own.”