Carlo Maria Dominici

Carlo Maria Dominici

At the age of 15, a student of Leland Thompson at the Juilliard School, Carlo Maria Dominici received an offer from Michelangeli to follow him to Italy to study with him. This was February 1966, in New York, just before a concert. From then on, he spent six years living with the Maestro, like in the old days, when students lived with their teachers,in a daily relationship akin to discipleship.

(The concert was in Symphony Hall, Boston on February 26, 1966. That same evening, Dominici flew with Michelangeli to Italy.)

At 10:30pm I had to go to bed, without arguing. I studied a lot, also because I had nothing else to do. There was no television, so I had no distractions. There was the radio, which the Maestro listened to only for the news. I managed to studyfor up to ten hours a day. He rarely spoke directly to me,  It was clear what was wrong. He was forcing me to think and reflect because I had to figure out the solution myself.The Maestro had several pianos in the cabin, and often, during lessons, he had me change instruments, so that I could learn immediately to adapt my performance to the differences between one piano and another. At first, it was a little frustrating because

I constantly lost concentration, but little by little I managed to get used to it. One day, during a lesson in my room, the Maestro appeared with a candle and turned off the light. I didn't understand. I could barely see. "Play," he said. "Maestro,  I can't see!" I replied. "You mustn't see, you must hear. There are good pianists who are blind and play very well," he insisted. "You must be able to play even without seeing." I began to think he was crazy! 

After several months of constant attempts and failures, I was able to play in the dark quite well. Luckily, we didn't have too many lessons in the dark. Later, the Maestro told me that during World War II, he often had to blow out the candles he used while practising to avoid further risk during air raids. So in the evenings, he was forced to practice in the dark. He explained that this "training" had helped him a lot with his concentration and his ability to "feel" with his fingers.

In some situations, the Maestro imposed fingerings that seemed unsuitable for my hand. But, as always, he was right. "You have to know your hand and approach every passage naturally (...) The hand knows exactly what it should do, but we often let ourselves be fooled by the ear (...) If you play any passage very slowly, trying not to let your ear influence you, you will realize that the hand knows exactly how to move naturally and precisely.”The Maestro insisted on the importance of playing very slowly to allow the hand to "feel" on its own, without being influenced by the ear. The faster you play, the more the ear interferes. Studying the score without an instrument is also extremely important, precisely because it allows you to "see" rather than "hear." "You have to use a little imagination when approaching the piece you're studying." 

The Maestro often listened to me in the corridor outside my room or in front of my window. Sometimes he came in and explained the phrasing of certain passages, other times he gave me advice during lunch or dinner. The lessons, however, had no set times or days. Sometimes he taught me in the morning. Sometimes in the afternoon, and on a few occasions even in the evening or after dinner, sometimes even on Sundays. The Maestro never got angry with me; on the contrary, he was always very patient. Every now and then he would leave the room to smoke his unfiltered Benson and Hedges cigarettes. He smoked a lot, exclusively that brand of cigarettes. They were also available in Italy, but only with filters; the unfiltered ones he obtained from Switzerland. On occasion, he even smoked French Gauloises, without a filter.

Lessons with the Maestro were always fascinating. He wrote down various fingerings for the pieces I studied. In particular, for the Chopin sonatas in B minor and B-flat minor, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, and Beethoven's Waldstein. He considered the study of all twenty-four Chopin etudes to be absolutely essential. He placed great importance on fingering, always insisting on the natural position of the hand. He never imposed his fingering except in certain situations. In Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 2, No. 3 in C major, at the beginning of the first movement, he absolutely insisted that I use fingers 4-1, 3-2, 4-1, 3-2, 4-1, 3-5, 4-1, 3-2, 5-1.Beethoven Sonata, Op. 2, No. 3 in C major. At first, I struggled a lot, but after a short while, I realized how well it worked and the clear, precise sound that came out of it. 

During lessons, the Maestro rarely sat next to me. He would sit far away from me or pace back and forth. He almost never interrupted me during a performance unlessI messed up a lot, which happened quite often. He never wrote anything down, butat the end of the performance, he was able to remember every little detail or mistake I made. Nothing escaped him: from the wrong finger, to the pedal slightly too long in a measure [bar], to the pause that was too short, to the uneven phrasing,to the unwanted accent. Absolutely incredible. He made me repeat the piece, and together we would repeat, point by point, what I had done wrong. Another fundamental aspect for the Maestro was the pedal. He always said that the pedal should be treated with delicacy and respect, and never violently. On rare occasions, the pedal should be pressed all the way down. “You have to learn to use it carefully,” he told me. “It’s like driving a car.” “It’s the lungs of the piano.” So the Maestro began to force me to train so that I could feel at least five different pressures to apply to the pedal.The same training had to be done with the left pedal as well, and I also had to practise applying different pressures on the two pedals simultaneously while playing anypiece. I admit I was going crazy! 

Revista Musica del Conservatorio dell’Aquila 2023