At 23, Andrea Lucchesini Is Attuned to the Romantics

At the ripe age of 23, Italian pianist Andrea Lucchesini, who makes his Hollywood Bowl debut tonight, has performed in virtually every major European city and in a number of U.S. and Canadian ones--his first Southern California appearance was at Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, last October.

Even before becoming the first Italian, at 18, to win the prestigious La Scala-sponsored Dino Ciani Piano Competition in Milan, Lucchesini had a manager and a recording contract with EMI/Angel. Since then, some critics have hailed him as a successor to his keyboard compatriots Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Maurizio Pollini.

In a telephone interview from his native Montecatini, a spa town near Florence, Lucchesini attributed his musical maturity to years of training exclusively with the pianist and teacher Maria Tipo.

“I began studying with her when I was 6,” he said via an interpreter. “The influence of her life was always on me. She could see my strengths, develop my repertory and guide my weaknesses. Because of her understanding, I avoided a lot of mistakes made by other pianists.

“I’ve been on my own now for two years,” he added. “But every so often I play for her and she gives me advice. I feel she’ll always be helpful.”

Lucchesini began playing the family piano--provided by his father, now a trumpeter with the Maggio Musicale Festival in Florence--at 5. Initially, he preferred popular radio songs and jazz interpretations by Oscar Peterson.

Under Tipo’s tutelage, however, Lucchesini developed an affinity for the Romantics. At the Bowl he will perform Liszt’s First Piano Concerto and Chopin’s “Andante Spianato” and “Grande Polonaise.”

“I’ve played them many times. I love them, both for their virtuosity and their great poetry.”

This will be the first time he has performed the “Andante Spianato” with an orchestra, he noted--the work, with its companion-piece, is often programmed without accompaniment. “But I think the difference will be minimal because the orchestral part is minimal.”

When learning a new piece, Lucchesini said, he works simultaneously on technique and interpretation. He also listens to recordings by other pianists; his favorites include Emil Gilels, Ashkenazy, Horowitz, Michelangeli and Pollini.

While he is flattered to be considered in the same league as the two Italians, Lucchesini said that comparisons rankle.

“I want to be known as a pianist with my own approach. Unlike a lot of pianists today who take great liberties with the music, I like to stay with what I feel the composer meant, but within that structure find new and interesting things, the greatest possible individual expression.”

Communicating those ideas with the audience is a prime concern. “As beautiful as it is to get applause at the end, the most wonderful sensation is to feel the public with me, their warmth.”

There are occasionally some differences in playing for U.S. and Italian audiences, he acknowledged. “Most of the time in America, the people come for the music. But two or three times they have sat for two or three hours (just) to go to the reception afterward. I’d never experienced that before.”

After his Bowl appearance, Lucchesini’s six-month, 60-concert tour season will include his first trip to Japan, and orchestral and recital appearances in Vienna, Spain and Canada, along with a return to the United States to perform in San Diego, Atlanta and Indianapolis. His latest CD, the Chopin Preludes, was released last week; he said he hopes to record the composer’s two piano concertos with the London Symphony.

“I haven’t yet confronted contemporary music, though I know I’ll have to,” he said. “I don’t feel it now. I don’t consider some of it--the electronic music--to be music.”

And what else does the future hold for Lucchesini? “I will continue studying,” he said. “I will always study. That’s what I see as my road.”