I have sadly to report that Aldo the pianist Ciccolini (aged 89) has died.
Certainly he has been a great advocate of romantic unsungs (Alkan, Severac, Castillon, Satie- if the last fits here ; even Achille Longo or Guido Alberto Fano).
Also an advocate for composers outside their core realm (for example for Rossini's piano music). Or for composers not often recorded at the time of his recordings (Saint-Saens, Chabrier, d'Indy, the Albeniz of the Piano Concerto).
I am especially grateful for his espousal of de Castillon's music. He was a great pianist.
Ciccolini's 1971 (first stereo) recording of Saint-Saens Piano Concertos is unforgettable. Just the right lightness, virtuosity and sense of humor reunited. And without his efforts, Satie would never have become world-known!
I got to know the Saint-Saens PCs through Ciccolini. Wonderful playing and perfect advocacy. A great artist.
Yes, me too. Saint-Saens and Ciccolini are inseparable in my mind. So many great musicians are passing away, and it feels like the end of an era for people such as myself, for whom these were the great maestros during the years we grew to love classical music. :(
And we're getting old too, Colin...
Older, please...
Beats the alternative, which brings us, it's true, to the topic of the topic :(
Old, older, oldest. Reads like a grammar exercise. And we all know that exercise is good for us at our age... ;)
Like others, I first encountered Ciccolini with the EMI sets of the Saint-Saens concertos and the Satie miniatures. For both composers Ciccolini conjures perfectly a delightfully bright and "optimistic" "French" tone (all rich surface and none the worse for it; but quite different from, say, Gilels) that showed me how much these these two S composers have in common, despite their obvious differences.
Ciccolini belongs to the era of great pianists who's career became more important and celebrated over time as he matured as an artist. He was the kind of pianist who represented the true spirit of being a great musician with an open mindedness to repertoire that we seldom see at this level.
All his performances were based on his own unique insight, from the unsungs talked about above and including the more standard faire.
That over used word "great" cannot be used enough in my opinion when talking about Aldo Ciccolini. Trully irreplaceable.
some of the works by Massenet and de Séverac that he performed and recorded, I believe, probably are still unsung (regrettably still so for all his advocacy) - especially since he recorded quite a few more works by Séverac than just his one calling-card work, Cerdaña (not that that's all that well-known either.) (Alas (and alack!), he insisted on following his own tastes and not this forum's, and recorded works by e.g. Kabalevsky and Poulenc as well as those of more Romantic composers, but what is one going to do? Tch. :D ) (I see he also recently contributed to a recording on Naxos of the piano quintet (1934) of his teacher/mentor, Achille Longo (son of well-known editor Alessandro), coupled with a recording- with another pianist - of the quintet by Mario Pilati...)