Description

CLARA SANSONI (PISTOIA, KINGDOM OF ITALY, 29 JUNE, 1893 – FLORENCE, ITALY, 23 APRIL, 1977)

 

 

 

 

Clara Sansoni was an Italian pianist and one of the notable representatives of the Spanish-French piano school associated with Isaac Albéniz and Francis Planté. She was born on 29 June 1893 in Pistoia, Italy, to Carlo Sansoni, a cellist in the Monte Carlo Orchestra, and Anna Wilmes, a Dutch musician who introduced her daughter to the piano at an early age. The family soon moved to Monte Carlo, where Clara began to attract attention as a remarkably gifted young pianist.

Sansoni gave her first public performances as a child and appeared as a soloist with orchestra in Monte Carlo in 1904, performing Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D major under the direction of Léon Jehin. Her reputation developed rapidly, and on 30 May 1907, at the age of thirteen, she made her important Paris debut at the Salle Érard, performing works by Bach-Liszt, Beethoven, Grieg and Albéniz. Contemporary critics praised her exceptional technical command, clarity, rhythmic sense and musical maturity.

A decisive influence on Sansoni’s artistic development was her association with the Spanish composer and pianist Isaac Albéniz. She studied with him during the period when he spent his winters in Nice, near Monte Carlo, and became one of his favourite pupils. Albéniz affectionately called her his “little monkey.” Their relationship was particularly significant because it coincided with the period in which Albéniz was composing his monumental piano cycle Iberia. Sansoni mastered the work’s extraordinary technical difficulties and became one of its earliest and most important interpreters. She also studied with the eminent French pianist Francis Planté, whose refined, clear and elegant style became another important element of her musical formation.

From 1906 onward, Sansoni performed regularly in Italy and France, while also appearing in other European musical centres. Her repertoire included Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Grieg and other major composers, but she became particularly identified with the music of Albéniz. In March 1909, she presented Iberia in London, introducing the then relatively unfamiliar work to British audiences and receiving considerable critical attention for the clarity and precision of her playing. She subsequently performed the music of Albéniz in Milan, Turin, Barcelona, Paris and other European cities, establishing a reputation as one of his most distinguished interpreters.

Her playing was regarded as a distinctive synthesis of the Spanish character of Albéniz’s music and the refined sound world of the French piano tradition represented by Planté. Contemporary critics repeatedly praised her technical strength, brilliance, clarity and musical intelligence. In 1924, the Italian critic Guido M. Gatti described her as a particularly outstanding pianist and a serious artist of great technical power.

Sansoni’s international career gradually declined after the First World War, and by the mid-1920s she had largely withdrawn from the international concert stage. Despite her relatively short major performing career, her importance as a direct interpreter of Albéniz remained recognised. In 1960, UNESCO included her among the pianists who had been among the first to appreciate the importance and genius of Albéniz’s music. Her artistic legacy is especially significant because she had learned directly from the composer and belonged to the generation that helped establish Iberia in the international piano repertoire.

Sansoni made no known commercial recordings. A private recording made in 1971, when she was 78, survives as a rare document of her late playing and includes works by Chopin, Beethoven and Albéniz. Clara Sansoni died in Florence on 23 April 1977, aged 83. Today she is remembered primarily as one of the most important direct pupils and interpreters of Isaac Albéniz and as a significant representative of the Albéniz–Planté Spanish-French piano tradition.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

 

Clara Sansoni, Ludwig van Beethoven, Isaac Albéniz, Frédéric Chopin – Clara Sansoni

Label: Clara Sansoni – LP 261177

Format: Vinyl, LP

Country: Italy

Genre: Classical

A1 Ludwig van Beethoven– Sonata In Fa Minore Op.57. “L’appassionata”

B1 Isaac Albéniz– Evocation

B2 Isaac Albéniz– El Puerto

B3 Frédéric Chopin– Nocturne En Do Mineur Op.48 N°1

B4 Frédéric Chopin– Etude N°12 En Ut Mineur Op.10

LP 261177

Pianista: Clara Sansoni

Matrix / Runout: SIde A: AY CS 261177- A 6 – 1 2 – 77

Matrix / Runout: Side B: AY CS 261177 – B 6 -1 2- 77