I began my studies as composer and organist in 1976 in the Conservatorio Rossini in Pesaro with Umberto Pineschi moving then to Bologna following my teacher, where I got my diploma in 1985.
In 1984 I enrolled for harpsichord at Amsterdam’s Sweelinck Conservatory invited by Ton Koopman, later transferring in 1987 into the class of Gustav Leonhardt with whom I finished my studies in 1990.
For two years I was simultaneously studying harpsichord in Amsterdam and organ in Bologna, travelling every month between the two towns for my lessons. Before graduating in Bologna, I had started to receive invitations to play the organ and harpsichord in many recitals and festivals. As I was considered a promising and talented young student, there was great anticipation for my final exam results in July 1985, even among the other organ students. But that exam turned out to be a great disappointment: the commission was deeply offended by my interpretation of Bach’s C minor Passacaglia which they found too fast. Because of internal conflicts, the commission went for a secret evaluation and the result was a surprisingly low vote, even if there was not a single wrong note in the whole concert. At the same time, I was accused by the commission of giving concerts before receiving my diploma (which it found unacceptable as it felt this put the reputation of the institution at risk) and of being enrolled in two different conservatories at the same time with two different teachers. The result of this violent reaction was experienced by me – a young 24-year-old boy – as rape and resulted in my not touching the organ for more than 20 years.
During these two years, I heard about Jesper Christensen who taught basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum in Basel and whose great knowledge about styles; periods and different schools in accompaniment made me want to meet him. These were issues to which Leonhardt had never given much importance and in fact we had never spoken about the basso continuo. I therefore made my way to Basel to meet Christensen and was seduced by his knowledge and ability to convey beauty. I immediately asked to start studying basso continuo and chamber music with him.
In that year, I also recorded my first CD together with violinist Luigi Mangiocavallo and cellist Claudio Ronco. This production was devoted to the Sonate Accademiche of Francesco Maria Veracini and the influence of Christensen’s teaching was evident in my playing, especially in the slow movements. My big mistake was to give one copy of that CD to Gustav Leonhardt.
Suddenly, for unexpected bureaucratic reasons, the Sweelinck Conservatory discovered that during my six years of regular harpsichord studies nobody had asked me to follow basso continuo lessons and go through an exam so they wanted me to go through an exam before my final concert.
My basso continuo exam was then set for 2 April 1990 at 10pm. I was scheduled to be the last in a long list of students taking the exam and I had explained to Leonhardt that, traveling from Italy, I could not bring a musician with me. He reassured me that the school would organise an instrumentalist I could accompany directly during the exam, as my skills were such that I could accompany an instrumentalist even without rehearsals. I accepted that challenge, but when my turn came and I entered the classroom, Gustav Leonhardt and Bob van Asperen were there, but there were no musicians to accompany, although I had seen at least ten violinists and flutists leave the room while I was waiting for my turn. Leonhardt explained to me that unfortunately they had not been able to find anyone to play for me and I was very surprised. On the table was a large volume of Bach cantatas with a bookmark on the first recitative of BWV 214, tenor key for the voice, and no figures for the accompaniment. They gave me a pencil saying: Put the numbers! I had never done such a thing in my life, perhaps I had never even seen the recitative of a Bach cantata and in any case, I do not think that any other student of the Amsterdam Conservatory had ever been subjected to an exam of that type. I should have refused the test but I plucked up courage and started analysing the scores and writing. My heart was beating fast as I listened to their amused comments and, of course, some of my harmonisations were wrong. Leonhardt remarked that he was surprised that someone as good as me was having trouble taking that test but admitted that as it was not an orthodox exam, I could retake it. However, the only possible opportunity to bring the commission back together was on 19 June in the afternoon, the same day I was scheduled to play my final concert in the morning at 9am.
I received a rather high evaluation (8/10) for my final concert but in one of the only existing cases in the whole history of the Sweelinck Conservatory, and probably in the history of teaching in public institutions, the job was still not done, because the complementary basso continuo exam was waiting for me in the afternoon.
(This could be compared to a medical student who, after discussing his thesis at university would be asked to go through a small arithmetic exam, usually held in his first year.)
As was easily predictable, the commission gave me a zero which invalidated my diploma, inflicting upon me an additional and severe public humiliation.
Another strange event was the Italian National Teacher Selection in Trieste (1992) where I participated together with a hundred harpsichordists, obtaining the lowest evaluation of all (4/10).
The next time I entered a school as a student was in 2009 and the motivation was to follow the lessons in renaissance polyphony by Prof Diego Fratelli at the Conservatorio in Lecce. The studies ended two years later with the highest possible note cum laude and opened up to me a fantastic world of knowledge that would give a decisive turn to my musical sensitivity.
In summer 2011, when I found out about the future birth of my first daughter, I remembered my incomplete exam thirty years earlier and wrote to the Amsterdam Conservatory to see if there was a possibility to officially validate my diploma. After having recovered all the original documentation in the archives, the management of the conservatory granted me the possibility of repeating the exam in front of a new commission in order to validate my diploma. This meant a series of trips to Amsterdam and close contacts with the lovely basso continuo teacher of the school, Therese de Goede.
23 years after the first exam, only one teacher, Bob van Asperen, who was on the jury of my previous exams, was still in charge and expected to be part of the commission. Leonhardt had passed away in 2012. Bob van Asperen was the only person who knew the whole story of my exams in 1990 but he never showed up at this new exam. The exam was held on 14 January 2013 and was successful. However, only a few minutes after its conclusion, (and to the surprise also of Therese de Goede and the commission), I was summoned to a small room by the Director of the Conservatory who informed me that the UM diploma no longer existed, and therefore it was impossible to issue it, even though all the exams had now been passed successfully. Beside the table where the conversation took place, I noticed a big photo of Gustav Leonhardt placed there probably a few minutes earlier: he seemed to be glancing at his former student, with a rather satisfied look. “It’s there by chance!” said the director!
In 1987, during an internal exam at the Sweelinck Conservatory, I must have made a good impression on Gustav Leonhardt as he expressed a warm interest in my playing saying that there were just a few improvements I could make. That prompted me to ask him if he would accept me as his student. His answer in the affirmative gave me the opportunity to switch from Koopman to Leonhardt within a Conservatory which, at the time, was the most exclusive place in the world where one could learn to play that instrument. After a year of lessons, Leonhardt offered me the possibility of getting my final UM diploma in 1990, allowing me a two-year gap away from the school in order to give concerts and make new musical experiences. In the meantime, I had also received the harpsichord diploma from the Pesaro Conservatory, as an external student, with the highest possible evaluation.
During these two years, I heard about Jesper Christensen who taught basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum in Basel and whose great knowledge about styles; periods and different schools in accompaniment made me want to meet him. These were issues to which Leonhardt had never given much importance and in fact we had never spoken about the basso continuo. I therefore made my way to Basel to meet Christensen and was seduced by his knowledge and ability to convey beauty. I immediately asked to start studying basso continuo and chamber music with him.
In that year, I also recorded my first CD together with violinist Luigi Mangiocavallo and cellist Claudio Ronco. This production was devoted to the Sonate Accademiche of Francesco Maria Veracini and the influence of Christensen’s teaching was evident in my playing, especially in the slow movements. My big mistake was to give one copy of that CD to Gustav Leonhardt.
Suddenly, for unexpected bureaucratic reasons, the Sweelinck Conservatory discovered that during my six years of regular harpsichord studies nobody had asked me to follow basso continuo lessons and go through an exam so they wanted me to go through an exam before my final concert.
My basso continuo exam was then set for 2 April 1990 at 10pm. I was scheduled to be the last in a long list of students taking the exam and I had explained to Leonhardt that, traveling from Italy, I could not bring a musician with me. He reassured me that the school would organise an instrumentalist I could accompany directly during the exam, as my skills were such that I could accompany an instrumentalist even without rehearsals. I accepted that challenge, but when my turn came and I entered the classroom, Gustav Leonhardt and Bob van Asperen were there, but there were no musicians to accompany, although I had seen at least ten violinists and flutists leave the room while I was waiting for my turn. Leonhardt explained to me that unfortunately they had not been able to find anyone to play for me and I was very surprised. On the table was a large volume of Bach cantatas with a bookmark on the first recitative of BWV 214, tenor key for the voice, and no figures for the accompaniment. They gave me a pencil saying: Put the numbers! I had never done such a thing in my life, perhaps I had never even seen the recitative of a Bach cantata and in any case, I do not think that any other student of the Amsterdam Conservatory had ever been subjected to an exam of that type. I should have refused the test but I plucked up courage and started analysing the scores and writing. My heart was beating fast as I listened to their amused comments and, of course, some of my harmonisations were wrong. Leonhardt remarked that he was surprised that someone as good as me was having trouble taking that test but admitted that as it was not an orthodox exam, I could retake it. However, the only possible opportunity to bring the commission back together was on 19 June in the afternoon, the same day I was scheduled to play my final concert in the morning at 9am.
I received a rather high evaluation (8/10) for my final concert but in one of the only existing cases in the whole history of the Sweelinck Conservatory, and probably in the history of teaching in public institutions, the job was still not done, because the complementary basso continuo exam was waiting for me in the afternoon.
(This could be compared to a medical student who, after discussing his thesis at university would be asked to go through a small arithmetic exam, usually held in his first year.)
As was easily predictable, the commission gave me a zero which invalidated my diploma, inflicting upon me an additional and severe public humiliation.
Another strange event was the Italian National Teacher Selection in Trieste (1992) where I participated together with a hundred harpsichordists, obtaining the lowest evaluation of all (4/10).
The next time I entered a school as a student was in 2009 and the motivation was to follow the lessons in renaissance polyphony by Prof Diego Fratelli at the Conservatorio in Lecce. The studies ended two years later with the highest possible note cum laude and opened up to me a fantastic world of knowledge that would give a decisive turn to my musical sensitivity.
In summer 2011, when I found out about the future birth of my first daughter, I remembered my incomplete exam thirty years earlier and wrote to the Amsterdam Conservatory to see if there was a possibility to officially validate my diploma. After having recovered all the original documentation in the archives, the management of the conservatory granted me the possibility of repeating the exam in front of a new commission in order to validate my diploma. This meant a series of trips to Amsterdam and close contacts with the lovely basso continuo teacher of the school, Therese de Goede.
23 years after the first exam, only one teacher, Bob van Asperen, who was on the jury of my previous exams, was still in charge and expected to be part of the commission. Leonhardt had passed away in 2012. Bob van Asperen was the only person who knew the whole story of my exams in 1990 but he never showed up at this new exam. The exam was held on 14 January 2013 and was successful. However, only a few minutes after its conclusion, (and to the surprise also of Therese de Goede and the commission), I was summoned to a small room by the Director of the Conservatory who informed me that the UM diploma no longer existed, and therefore it was impossible to issue it, even though all the exams had now been passed successfully. Beside the table where the conversation took place, I noticed a big photo of Gustav Leonhardt placed there probably a few minutes earlier: he seemed to be glancing at his former student, with a rather satisfied look. “It’s there by chance!” said the director!
During these two years, I heard about Jesper Christensen who taught basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum in Basel and whose great knowledge about styles; periods and different schools in accompaniment made me want to meet him. These were issues to which Leonhardt had never given much importance and in fact we had never spoken about the basso continuo. I therefore made my way to Basel to meet Christensen and was seduced by his knowledge and ability to convey beauty. I immediately asked to start studying basso continuo and chamber music with him.
In that year, I also recorded my first CD together with violinist Luigi Mangiocavallo and cellist Claudio Ronco. This production was devoted to the Sonate Accademiche of Francesco Maria Veracini and the influence of Christensen’s teaching was evident in my playing, especially in the slow movements. My big mistake was to give one copy of that CD to Gustav Leonhardt.
Suddenly, for unexpected bureaucratic reasons, the Sweelinck Conservatory discovered that during my six years of regular harpsichord studies nobody had asked me to follow basso continuo lessons and go through an exam so they wanted me to go through an exam before my final concert.
My basso continuo exam was then set for 2 April 1990 at 10pm. I was scheduled to be the last in a long list of students taking the exam and I had explained to Leonhardt that, traveling from Italy, I could not bring a musician with me. He reassured me that the school would organise an instrumentalist I could accompany directly during the exam, as my skills were such that I could accompany an instrumentalist even without rehearsals. I accepted that challenge, but when my turn came and I entered the classroom, Gustav Leonhardt and Bob van Asperen were there, but there were no musicians to accompany, although I had seen at least ten violinists and flutists leave the room while I was waiting for my turn. Leonhardt explained to me that unfortunately they had not been able to find anyone to play for me and I was very surprised. On the table was a large volume of Bach cantatas with a bookmark on the first recitative of BWV 214, tenor key for the voice, and no figures for the accompaniment. They gave me a pencil saying: Put the numbers! I had never done such a thing in my life, perhaps I had never even seen the recitative of a Bach cantata and in any case, I do not think that any other student of the Amsterdam Conservatory had ever been subjected to an exam of that type. I should have refused the test but I plucked up courage and started analysing the scores and writing. My heart was beating fast as I listened to their amused comments and, of course, some of my harmonisations were wrong. Leonhardt remarked that he was surprised that someone as good as me was having trouble taking that test but admitted that as it was not an orthodox exam, I could retake it. However, the only possible opportunity to bring the commission back together was on 19 June in the afternoon, the same day I was scheduled to play my final concert in the morning at 9am.
I received a rather high evaluation (8/10) for my final concert but in one of the only existing cases in the whole history of the Sweelinck Conservatory, and probably in the history of teaching in public institutions, the job was still not done, because the complementary basso continuo exam was waiting for me in the afternoon.
(This could be compared to a medical student who, after discussing his thesis at university would be asked to go through a small arithmetic exam, usually held in his first year.)
As was easily predictable, the commission gave me a zero which invalidated my diploma, inflicting upon me an additional and severe public humiliation.
Another strange event was the Italian National Teacher Selection in Trieste (1992) where I participated together with a hundred harpsichordists, obtaining the lowest evaluation of all (4/10).
The next time I entered a school as a student was in 2009 and the motivation was to follow the lessons in renaissance polyphony by Prof Diego Fratelli at the Conservatorio in Lecce. The studies ended two years later with the highest possible note cum laude and opened up to me a fantastic world of knowledge that would give a decisive turn to my musical sensitivity.
In summer 2011, when I found out about the future birth of my first daughter, I remembered my incomplete exam thirty years earlier and wrote to the Amsterdam Conservatory to see if there was a possibility to officially validate my diploma. After having recovered all the original documentation in the archives, the management of the conservatory granted me the possibility of repeating the exam in front of a new commission in order to validate my diploma. This meant a series of trips to Amsterdam and close contacts with the lovely basso continuo teacher of the school, Therese de Goede.
23 years after the first exam, only one teacher, Bob van Asperen, who was on the jury of my previous exams, was still in charge and expected to be part of the commission. Leonhardt had passed away in 2012. Bob van Asperen was the only person who knew the whole story of my exams in 1990 but he never showed up at this new exam. The exam was held on 14 January 2013 and was successful. However, only a few minutes after its conclusion, (and to the surprise also of Therese de Goede and the commission), I was summoned to a small room by the Director of the Conservatory who informed me that the UM diploma no longer existed, and therefore it was impossible to issue it, even though all the exams had now been passed successfully. Beside the table where the conversation took place, I noticed a big photo of Gustav Leonhardt placed there probably a few minutes earlier: he seemed to be glancing at his former student, with a rather satisfied look. “It’s there by chance!” said the director!
My first piano lessons were in 1966 in the private school of Maestro Guglielmo Brigidi in Macerata. From the beginning the music was dealt with by this elderly master in a serious and rigorous way. My first meeting with the harpsichord took place in London, in the Early Music Shop and it was love at first sight. In Italy in the 70s it was not possible to access the studies of this instrument before obtaining a diploma in organ or piano. The instruments present in the conservatory were the Wittmayers, not at all attractive, however the professor of the Pesaro Conservatory, M° Maria Letizia Pascoli allowed me to access her lessons as an auditor. My frequent participation immediately turned into a direct exchange and real lessons. The explosion of the “Zuckermann Kit” fashion in the 70s – real instruments to be built at home piece by piece – made me invest all my childhood savings in the purchase of an Italian virginal which I built with the help of my father and which became my first historical musical instrument. The study of the organ, in a Region such as the Marche rich in historical instruments, put me in contact with the world of ancient instruments from an early age, in this case most of the time still in original condition, that is, not restored and full of dust. The “hunt” for ancient instruments was one of my most important hobbies during my musical growth. In the Dutch years I met Joop Klinkhamer, an important harpsichord maker who had in turn created a collection of “do it yourself kits”. After acquiring a bank loan and thanks to the construction experience of my first Kit instrument, I bought two identical instruments which I assembled and finished within a few months. One was sold to pay off my bank loan and the other became my primary instrument on which to prepare my lessons. The study of the organ followed the academic development, enriched by the annual attendance at the specialisation courses in Pistoia where the most important masters such as Tagliavini, Radulescu held lessons every summer. As for the organ, the love at first sight occurred during a public lecture by Michel Chapuis which left all the spectators astounded after an admirable improvisation and the love for the harpsichord was triggered during a Ralph Kirkpatrick concert.
The first organ concert took place in 1982 in a small and cold church in the Marche region and that of the harpsichord in the prestigious Musica e Poesia in San Maurizio in Milan where, thanks to a recommendation by Ton Koopman, I was invited to perform in a billboard full of stars of ancient music such as Gustav Leonhardt, Jordi Savall, Frans Brüggen, Anner Bylsma just to name a few. In those years I played a large number of recitals on both instruments since in the 80s there was an extraordinary musical life also dictated by the rediscovery of the original instruments and their use in musical interpretation. All this important decade was dedicated to the study of these instruments and above all to the harpsichord after what had happened to my final diploma in Bologna. This long period of study forces a passionate musician into deep solitude, as in all disciplines conducted exclusively, and this led me in the early 90s to an almost rejection of instrumental solitude which resulted in the abandonment of my solo recitals. In those years I became a music entrepreneur, record producer, artistic director of festivals – leaving behind solo activity which nobody, least of all myself, was interested in any longer. In all the record productions produced for E lucevan le stelle Records, however, I maintained a decisive decision-making presence, so much so that I can affirm that all my records, although played by others, are as if I had played them myself. Only after 20 years, in 2011, Professor Henrique Silveira, artistic director of a Portuguese festival, wishing to hear me play as a soloist, commissioned me to perform a harpsichord recital, an event that belonged to a world now very distant. To accept or not to accept? What would be the price to pay to resurrect a musical world that had been buried for decades? In what condition would those fingers that had moved only on a computer keyboard be? The task was very hard, not from a technical point of view but from a psychological one, like getting closer to a person who no longer loves, who no longer belongs to the present life. But strong love endures over time and thanks to that invitation a world that never died internally came back to life and today I play and study my instrument with the passion of my twenties and perform regularly all over the world.
The first ensemble named Sacro & Profano and with it the need to “conduct” a group of musicians was born in 1993 thanks to the encounter with a series of young singers such as Roberta Invernizzi, Rosa Dominguez, Gianpaolo Fagotto and Antonio Abete. The need and the desire to create a vocal ensemble arose from the rediscovery, in the same year, of the ancient practice of Cantar Lontano, at the time known only by musicologists but never put into practice. The practice of Cantar Lontano (which, according to its inventor Ignazio Donati, did not require a director) nevertheless initially undertook a series of experiments and attempts aimed at conducting musicians placed at a distance from each other. Even more challenging was dealing with great polychoral compositions such as Donati’s Vespers with four choirs, The Psalms of Viadana and Giacobbi, Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Holy Virgin imposing compositions that have sometimes brought together more than 50 singers and instrumentalists. Directing and artistically coordinating all of this is an important undertaking. Inevitably the only way to succeed was to do as the ancients did, and for this reason a detailed research on the historical musical direction modality was carried out. The need to learn a modern directional technique, easily understood by today’s orchestras, arose when we started working with some symphony orchestras. A course in orchestral conducting technique was followed as an auditor with M° Gilberto Serembe in Cervia and subsequently, having to deal with very demanding productions such as Gioachino Rossini’s Otello, the guidance of a great conductor like Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli has been fundamental. Two musicians whose mutual esteem has been consolidated over time as well as in a fraternal friendship.
