27 / 64
FLORIAN NOACK 27
In your concern to be as complete as possible in your approach to folk-
inspired music, you have even arranged the
Tarantella
by the Italian
composer Martucci . . .
Right from the initial conception of the programme, one thing was sure: I really
wanted to include a frenzied tarantella, if possible by an Italian composer.
There are already two rather different versions of this piece, which has such
interesting themes: one for solo piano, and the other for orchestra. I don’t
know which of the two was written first, but found the orchestral version more
colourful, wilder, more extravert than the version for piano, which in the end is a
bit too restrained. So I rewrote a new piano version based on the orchestral model.
Your recital ends with two pieces by Komitas, who was known as ‘the
Armenian Bartók’.
I got to know the music of Komitas thanks to my pianist wife, who is Armenian.
The two dances use different modes: one of thememploys the augmented second,
a sort of ‘harmonic spice’ that immediately conjures up the Orient, while the other
is in the Aeolian mode (a minor mode made even more nostalgic by the absence
of the leading note, despite the marking ‘Giocoso e con tenerezza’). The style of
these pieces is almost ascetic, and they are extremely precise in their notation.
Almost every note has a marking indicating the character, the articulation or the
dynamics. I find a somewhat contemplative character in this music: yes, these are
dances, but viewed from a certain distance . . .