by Ilaria Gaspari
He is a writer, she is a pianist, music is a very strong bond between them. “In recent years we have had a very strange life: between the pandemic, the lockdown and the rest we have seen all sorts of things.” And they recently got married
Gloria Campaner and Alessandro Baricco are furnishing their apartment in Rome, the light is warm in the evening and they don’t yet have a table on which to place the tray with the teapot and chatter. On the other hand there is a beautiful blue carpet, a piano, a jasmine on the terrace. There is an air of a house under construction. They give me a small bag of sweets: after a complicated year, they got married a month ago, and are working on a six-handed project, together with Nicola Campogrande: Seven Springs. «It is a series of musical meetings that will be staged at the Holden school for seven Tuesdays from April 2nd; concerts followed by a moment of dialogue with the artists”, explains Campaner. «Usually after music there is no space for words; we thought of making room, in the same air, for this new vibration.”
Baricco intervenes: «I like that it’s a timed appointment: it repeats for seven springs, then it closes. And I find the idea of using the Holden premises to host music, which until now has not been very present in the life of the school, beautiful.”
ON 22 JANUARY 2022 THE WRITER ANNOUNCED, VIA SOCIAL MEDIA, THAT HE HAS A SERIOUS FORM OF LEUKEMIA. HE HAS SUBJECTED TO TWO Marrow Marrow Transplants
Indeed, music is a strong bond between them: «Before making my debut as a novelist, I was a music critic» says Baricco «and before that, I graduated in philosophy, with Vattimo. I did my thesis on Adorno – on Aesthetic Theory, a text of brilliant intuitions, written in a very elegant way. I adored Benjamin and, since Adorno was able to give order to Benjamin’s amazing but scattered thoughts, for me it was also a way to follow up on my adoration.”
Did you study German, then? «Well, when I entered Philosophy they told me straight away: you have to study German. And I did, even though when I left it was quite clear that it was better to study English at that point… now she speaks German much better.” Who completed his studies in Germany: «I lived for almost five years in Karlsruhe: I got my diploma there to become a concert performer. I had a Brazilian teacher, in fact Portuguese is the language I speak best. But I wrote my thesis in German, on Schumann.”
«She speaks any language» smiles Baricco «she can go halfway around the world, and she speaks… she even knows Polish».
Maybe it’s a matter of ear? «I’ve asked myself this many times. I think so: how you hear the notes, you grasp the accents, the words. And it won’t be a coincidence that I enrolled in Foreign Languages and Literatures at university. I studied Czech, Portuguese and Russian – among other things I have a passion for Russian music: the most beautiful, for the piano, in my opinion. Unfortunately I didn’t graduate, I moved to Germany and concentrated on music. Which, it is true, is a text: written in characters which, deciphered, become three-dimensional, come to life, transform.”
I, who unfortunately suffer from amusia, a small cognitive distortion where I struggle to recognize and appreciate music, almost have the sensation of understanding what he means. “Indeed. Gloria communicates with impressive ease. She never poses as an intellectual, but she has a trait, a way of being in the world and understanding it, that makes her authentically intellectual.” Certainly, she has traveled a lot around the world, since she was very young: “I’m a nomad” she says. «I have lived a large part of my life in hotels. And do you know? I absolutely love living in a hotel. In a hotel you are never alone.” «Isn’t that a strange thing to say? It is the place of solitude par excellence.” «In the room, maybe. Outside, there is hotel life… it is impossible to feel alone.”
«You went through a great loneliness: this is what the profession of pianist entails. For this reason, I believe, in her eyes every meeting is a gift in itself… I am more unpleasant. Or at least, I have a good relationship with solitude, perhaps also because I have never been forced into the ascetic discipline that music imposes.” In fact, these perspectives on hotels seem complementary to me. But do two artists, as a couple, influence each other? He weighs the question. «I feel that, between her and her illness, certain rigidities that I have had all my life have dissolved in me. I’m a better man – at least I think so. I hope”.
«We got closer, adjusted. There are parts of me that cannot change: they make me who I am. But it seems to me that a more complete version of me, little by little, at the end of this difficult period, is emerging. I have the feeling that his presence brings out the best in me, without me having to do much.”
«I want this in the title» he laughs. «She is now a much more fascinating, stronger, more beautiful woman than when I met her. It must be said that in recent years we have had a very strange life: between the pandemic, the lockdown and the rest we have seen all sorts of things. We had to face a lot of things together.”
THE WRITER: «I FEEL THAT BETWEEN HER AND THE ILLNESS, CERTAIN RIGIDITIES THAT I HAVE HAD ALL MY LIFE HAVE MELTED. I AM A BETTER MAN”
After experiencing success early on, in recent years they have both expressed the desire to take a step back. «I cut back on concerts» says Campaner «because I wanted to get off the very fast train I had been traveling on for too long. I wanted lots of stops, to be able to get off at small stations. Now I enjoy this slowness, which doesn’t distance me from music but allows me to also be interested in other aspects: musical direction, building a festival, the laboratory for musicians I founded, C#/See Sharp. I got a diploma in coaching. I study and play, always. But I was tired of the loneliness and the frenzy, I struggled to enjoy things, locked in the dressing room revising the score for the next day instead of being with those who had come to visit me. I have the greatest respect for the life I have led for years, the life of many of my colleagues; But for me it was time to slow down.”
And Abel, Baricco’s latest novel, arrived after the announcement that he would no longer write fiction: «I was sincere. Then I started writing, because I love the act of writing and I thought I’d take it back just for myself. I believed that I would still publish, yes, but only essays: the curiosity to understand the world – current, future, past – I knew would never pass. It’s a kind of inexhaustible reservoir… in fact I’m now working on a book on classical music.”
«Yes, he is immersed in music almost more than me, in this period».
«Because she brought it back to me. She had kind of disappeared from my life, and then I found her at home eight hours a day. In short, I had no doubts about the essays. But fiction… is a tiring thing. If you write books, let’s say, which are worlds – which you may like or not like, but they have that structure there – you can’t do it for your whole life. It is a great effort, even physical. And I was quite clear that, more or less, I had told the stories I had to tell. In fact I had started doing something else, I had put myself in a position where I didn’t need novels to live. From this freedom the first pages of Abel were born, written without thinking that anyone would read them. I said to myself: come on, I’ll continue it, I’ll carry it like a river towards the sea. He came out like this; it might not have happened, that’s all.”
«I must say that I insisted on publication. I read some folders, and every time I was saddened by the idea that it wouldn’t come out.”
THE PIANIST: «I WANTED TO GET OFF THE VERY SPEED TRAIN WHICH I HAD BEEN TRAVELING ON FOR TOO LONG. I WANTED TO STOP AT THE SMALL STATIONS”
There is a symmetry, perhaps, also in this rediscovery of the free artistic gesture, without performative constraint. «The slightly absurd fact» Baricco tells me «is that we both realized that we had thirty years of career behind us, even if we are different ages: she started very early, I started late». The Holden school will also be thirty in 2024: both also work in the training sector. But can talent be taught? «Anything can be taught: writing, for those who perhaps are not destined to become an author but want to learn it because they are building themselves, can still represent a center of gravity, a relief, a movement of the hands that eases breathing. It is not necessary to take a gesture to the highest competitive level for it to make sense. In fact, as the Greeks showed, teaching is a hunger for life that is transmitted from teacher to student. Something deeply erotic, in the philosophical sense of the word: a tension, a form of intensity. And ultimately I believe that the least you can do, when you know a job well, is to teach it to someone younger than you. It’s not generosity, it’s actually etiquette.” «I agree» comments Campaner. «And teaching to play is something I do very naturally. I don’t think my strong point is technical teaching, but in fact I somehow know how to help a person play better. Until now I have never taught at the Conservatory, precisely because I feared not being able to be present enough: it is a task to be taken very seriously, it was not compatible with the speed at which I moved until recently. I was afraid of not being able to be present enough. But the method I gave shape to with See Sharp derives precisely from the loneliness I myself experienced, from feeling misunderstood in my emotional life as a pianist and as a person. The experience has taught me how important caring for emotions is, beyond the performance.”
Is it too early to say if marriage changes things? «It was a chimera, something more than intimate: a sensation in the depths of my heart. I wanted it a lot, and being able to make it happen was a delight,” he says.
«I was a bit surprised. I thought I would never get married in my life! I’m someone who loves living in hotels, a nomad, let alone thinking about marriage. But it’s as if I had suddenly changed; It all went so quickly, and the closer the day got, the more I looked forward to it. It was a tiny, moving ceremony.” «And the honeymoon must have lasted twelve hours in total. We went to the Langhe, to a very beautiful place. A trattoria, a night out. Not even a Fifties thing. My father took a longer honeymoon!
WHO IS HE
THE LIFE
Alessandro Baricco, writer, playwright, television author, was born in Turin on 25 January 1958. He graduated in Philosophy (supervisor Gianni Vattimo)
THE CARREER
Baricco made his debut in 1991 with Castelli di rage, two years later he released Oceano mare, Premio Viareggio. In 1994 he founded the Holden School in Turin. Among his latest works, The Game (Einaudi) and Abel (Feltrinelli)
WHO IS SHE
THE LIFE
Gloria Campaner, pianist, was born in Jesolo on 5 April 1986. She perfected her skills with Bruno Mezzena, Konstantin Bogino, Fany Solter
THE CARREER
Campaner performs all over the world as a soloist, but she also dedicates herself to chamber music and has tried her hand at jazz. You founded the creative laboratory C # See Sharp, to manage psychological resources and emotions during public events
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February 3, 2024 (modified February 3, 2024 | 10:19)
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