Pianist and composer from Pesaro, Mario Totaro has dedicated himself for years to the dissemination of music through meetings with the public to raise awareness and curiosity about composition techniques, but not only. The sixth edition of these fascinating “concert lessons” will start tomorrow, Sunday 21 April, at 6 pm in Pesaro, in the church of SS. Annunziata, also organized by the Filarmonica Rossini, and this year is dedicated to five great composers of the 19th century: Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Fryderyk Chopin, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt.
Musical romance
«These musicians, often united by great friendships, inaugurated the so-called “Musical Romanticism” and contributed, each in their own way, to ferrying music from Beethoven’s premonitions to a new world that prefigures the great challenges and innovations of the 20th century», he says Totaro. «Since they were very well-known authors, we focused on specific, little-known and surprising aspects, rather than trying to summarize these gigantic personalities in a short time. In fact, the first meeting will be dedicated to the figure of Hector Berlioz and in particular to “Symphonie Fantastique”, an autobiographical piece created to celebrate an idealised, crazy and impossible love; hallucinatory piece (it is no coincidence that the title of the meeting is “Hector Berlioz’s trip”), futuristic and divisive, destined to irremediably upset the European music scene”. Totaro’s peculiarity is also that he never uses too technical language.
«If I use it – he states – I explain it in such a way that everyone can understand. It is an initiative that immediately had great success and I would like it to be followed by young people too, also because I try to offer unusual points of view, above all by identifying the aspects of modernity of these authors who, even if they lived in the first half of ‘Nineteenth century, they are more modern than some twentieth century authors and this is the most curious side.” Very different authors… «Of course, like Manzoni he is different from Leopardi, but in music it is sometimes difficult to understand what diversity consists of. I always try to blend historical and biographical aspects with curious anecdotes. There is also a keyboard with which I will do live examples, to make things more interactive.” Almost a pleasant chat. «Unfortunately there is no musical education path in schools: the history of music is the prerogative only of conservatories and this leads to the cultural isolation of classical musicians. Music becomes entertainment and not a cultural fact.”
The public
Especially classical music… «When I was a child, classical music was considered the music of the “matusa”, but since nothing has ever been done to change this situation it seems that music is only for them and this leads to a progressive aging of the public. This is one of the reasons why, in my own small way, I try to approach people in an attractive way. A form of performance and composition that I experience as if I were doing a concert, which has its own structure and is expressed almost theatrically. And there are several cities interested in this project, starting with Bologna.”
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