Pietro Beltrani - Textures (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Pietro Beltrani is a pianist, composer, and arranger based in Italy. He graduated from the Conservatorio Rossini with full marks and honors, and later obtained a diploma at the International Piano Academy "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola, studying with Franco Scala and Piero Rattalino. Being awarded over 20 prizes in national piano competitions, he has played in all the most important Italian halls and theaters. In 2021, he released his classical debut album with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and founded the Beltrani Modern Piano Trio. His discography ranges from classical music to jazz, and original compositions that bridge these two worlds.

In 2022, Pietro released Textures, an album containing 4 original preludes that he wrote between 2016 and 2021. These miniatures exhibit a fascinating breadth of musical influence, craftily curating post-romantic tone clusters and blazing bebop lines in between the nostalgia-laden melodic sensibility of a Ghibli film score. I spoke to Pietro about his approach to harmony, opposing ideologies of musicians in classical and jazz, unexplored avenues in musical innovation, and the importance of melody.

"For many years I thought of myself as a jazz composer, because that was the musical style in which I felt I had something new to say. Perhaps because of my musical education, it’s hard to think of myself as a composer in the classical sense of the word without feeling intimidated by the great composers of the past. How can one even begin to replicate the superhuman abilities of Mozart, Chopin or Debussy? But over the last few years, my musical life – that was mostly tied up in jazz – took a turn to classical music again. I released my first classical album with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in 2021, and subsequently released 2 albums with music by Poulenc and Rachmaninoff’s complete piano transcriptions.

During this time I started to consider composing more structured music, containing elements of classical form. The prelude was the first form I could think of, because of the expressive freedom it allows. The first three preludes have an ABA form (in which the first and third sections are the same, like in an Impromptu or Nocturne), with the fourth prelude being the exception having an AABA form. The first prelude I wrote was No. 4 (Lugo, 8.15 AM) in 2016. It was inspired by summer days in Lugo, where the town is sometimes completely empty in the morning due to most people leaving for holidays during that period. I have worked on and off on the first prelude since 2017, finally finishing it in 2020. And the second and third preludes were composed simultaneously in 2021, with the latter being my favorite. The sub-title of the third prelude (Dreaming is not forbidden) refers to all the people who stopped moving around and living their lives during the COVID-19 lockdown. Dreaming seemed to me the only thing that was still possible to do.

Upon reading through these four preludes, I was often surprised by your approach to harmony in terms of density. Most notably in the Lento section of Prelude 1 – with its recurring 8-note clusters – , but also scattered throughout the second, third and fourth Preludes as single-hand 5-note clusters. Stylistically, these voicings inject a kind of tonal ambiguity that seems to stem more from early 20th-century classical music than the lineage of jazz. As a composer and improviser, to what degree do you think your harmonic vocabulary is owed to your exposure to classical literature, as opposed to jazz?

The easy answer is that I have always played classical and jazz together ever since I was young, so it has always been natural for me to put everything I learned from classical music in my jazz playing. If you are a jazz pianist coming from classical studies, it’s like your fingers are in a way forced to-, and instinctively reach for adjacent keys while playing, so it’s easier to then consider 10-note clusters as jazz voicings. Many jazz teachers are dogmatic about jazz harmony and drill students not to play too many notes. But I feel having this many notes in a chord can heighten its expressive qualities. Sometimes it also just depends on how the hands instinctively move themselves on the piano or how you feel the music."

Tracklist:
01 - Prelude 1
02 - Prelude 2
03 - Prelude 3
04 - Prelude 4
05 - First Kiss
06 - Walzer Riflessivo
07 - Nocturne


Thanks to the Original customer!