Prólogo al libro "Tecleando. Reflexiones sobre el mundo del piano y del conservatorio" / Foreword to the book "Keying. Reflections on the world of the piano and the conservatory"
Published by Editorial Boileau (Barcelona). March 2020In June 1982, the newly established Conservatory of Cuenca organized the first edition (there would be two in total) of an International Music Course for Young Performers. Lasting three weeks, it offered at the time an alternative to the Música en Compostela and Manuel de Falla courses in Santiago and Granada -virtually the only summer music courses held in Spain since their creation in 1958 and 1970, respectively.
The Cuenca course generated great interest among young performers, thanks both to its novelty and to the high calibre of its teaching staff. The names of Gonçal Comellas (violin), Rafael Ramos (cello), Linda Wetherill (flute) and Bruno Pizzamiglio (oboe) attracted the then very young Santiago de la Riva, Ángel Luis Quintana, Juana Guillem and Jesús Fuster, among many others -just to mention a few of the students who now hold prominent positions in teaching and performance in our country. And among this outstanding faculty, piano instruction could not be lacking: it was entrusted to Maria Curcio, whose teaching benefitted, among many others, Albert Nieto.
At that time, I held the position of professor and secretary at the Conservatory of Cuenca, and thus it fell to me to take on a significant part of the organization of the 1982 and 1983 summer courses (1). It was in those years that I first met Albert, and our acquaintance soon grew into a friendship, forged over nearly forty years of good professional understanding, including several collaborations of very different kinds.
The first one took place in 1986, when Albert -by then a professor at the Higher Conservatory of Music of Vitoria-Gasteiz- asked me to write a short piano piece for a program of premieres by various Spanish composers in commemoration of the International Year of Peace. From that first collaboration came Amb "P" de Pau, which premiered at the Arriaga Theatre in Bilbao in October 1987, was recorded in 1988 (along with the other commissioned works) on the LP "Música por la Paz", and some years later, in 1995, was included in the CD "El Piano Actual". The commission, the LP, and the CD all stand as a declaration of Albert Nieto's principles regarding contemporary musical creation in general, and that written for the piano in particular.
The most recent is so new that the premiere of the resulting work coincided with the writing of this prologue, lending it a sense of immediacy that makes it particularly engaging. It is Salomé, empty chalice, for soprano and piano, composed in 2016 on texts by Delmira Agustini and Oscar Wilde, along with fragments from Richard Strauss's "Salome". This was for a singular project that only he could have conceived: to build a performance for soprano and piano in which both performers, in addition to singing and playing, would interact as actress and actor in the service of three new works, each centered on a female character (Carmen, in the case of David del Puerto, and Amalia Rodrigues, in that of Fernando Lázaro), all under the common heading "Three Women's Passions". In other words, thirty years later I again found myself with Albert in a renewed declaration of those principles that had moved him to request Amb "P" de Pau; only this time the project was not only more ambitious, but carried absolute scenic, literary, and musical risk. Such are the ventures one undertakes with age, when there is a restless, innovative spirit ("pesquisidor," as Montsalvatge would say) for whom the well-trodden path is simply boring.
With such a background, it is easy to see how naturally a composer can work with a performer like Albert Nieto. The book for which these lines serve as a preface bears ample witness to these concerns, and to many more that I will soon mention. But above all, I wish to highlight the pianist who goes beyond what the rich literature of his instrument offers, who actively seeks out the composer in order to inject, with the sting of his nonconformity, the venom of a creativity that is practically impossible to resist. For Albert is, in this sense, a rara avis, a "white blackbird" who, far from assuming that everything has already been written and that there is no reason to go further, firmly believes in the time he has been given to live -with its advantages and drawbacks, its achievements and contradictions- and thus puts at its disposal all his talent as a performer and his generosity as a person, striving to keep the horizon line, if not farther away, at least at the distance he wishes it to remain. (2)
How else to explain a curriculum vitae like his, in which the sheer number of facets to which he has devoted his attention over his long professional life is overwhelming? Those of us who know Albert admire his talent as a performer (attested to by some fifteen CDs, including many world-premiere recordings as well as a highly acclaimed version of Albéniz's Iberia), but we cannot fail to marvel at his intense pedagogical activity (3), as well as at his important legacy in the form of books and articles devoted to various issues related both to the technique of his instrument (4) and to purely pedagogical aspects of its teaching (5). This is without forgetting his research into the importance of performer communication and other current trends in classical music, exemplified by his extensive and fascinating study entitled The Expressive Gesture of the Musician; nor should we overlook his interest in musical outreach through lectures and radio programs. Is more proof needed? (Ah, yes! I almost forgot! We must not fail to mention his critical edition of Albéniz's Suite Iberia, whose three volumes provide the scholar of this monumental work with fingerings, pedaling, and formal and memorization indications, as well as general, didactic [fingering, pedaling, attack], and analytical [formal, harmonic, and memorization] commentary…).
Well then, Keying joins all of this, but with the special distinction that for the first time in his long career Albert Nieto offers us, in a single volume, a set of texts addressing different -and not always complementary- aspects of piano technique, interpretation, analysis (wonderful, the one devoted to Chopin's Revolutionary study), teaching (of music in general, and piano in particular), and the necessity of including contemporary music therein (supported by important opinions from Alberto Rosado, Ricardo Descalzo, Gustavo Díaz-Jerez, among other colleagues), along with the peculiarities of conservatories… all in a miscellany of studies and reflections that make up the first three chapters of the book. This is complemented by two final sections: first, a tribute of equal parts admiration and affection to various musical personalities (pianists, composers, and teachers) who have played an important role in shaping him as a musician and as a person; and second, a tribute to Albert's own students in whom he most recognizes himself as a teacher and to whom he has transmitted the legacy inherited from his masters, thereby ensuring the survival of his knowledge and -above all- his attitude toward music.
The best way to close this prologue is to quote Albert Nieto himself, allowing his words to form the transition between mine and the reading of the book they introduce. The quotation is none other than the declaration of principles that opens his website (albertnieto.com):
It is a great fortune to be able to develop my concerns and to feel that I contribute something to society. My aspirations focus on performance, pedagogy, research, and musical outreach, and it is very gratifying to be able to share them with others.
Notes
(1) Although I am aware that it is not customary to include footnotes in a prologue such as this, I believe it is appropriate to inform the reader that the incident to which Albert Nieto refers in his homage to Maria Curcio in the "My Tributes" section of this book was not caused by me, but by the course director, whom I was assisting in organizational tasks.
(2) Is it a coincidence that he was born on a fifth of February, just as the Catalan pianist Ricard Viñes was 80 years earlier, with whom he shares the virtues described above?
(3) As professor and chair of Piano at the conservatories of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Murcia, Alicante, Castellón and Albacete, and including in this role the numerous courses he has given for the training of teachers, students, and candidates, as well as his various responsibilities in management and organization in the different centers where he has worked: from director to department head at the Conservatory of Vitoria-Gasteiz, to advisor and organizer of courses and concert series (EPTA, Aula de Música at the University of Alcalá de Henares, among other institutions).
(4) Such as Piano fingering (1988) or The sustain pedal: The soul of the piano (2001).
(5) Such as The group piano class: activity ideas (2003) or Strategies for the proper functioning of a (keyboard) Department (2000).
Madrid, October 2018