LEO DE MARÍA, A YOUNG AND GREAT PIANIST
Rafael Aznar

Both the program and the way it was carried out were a great success. The pianist began by recalling that he had played here first when he was twelve years old and later when he was fourteen, and on both occasions he won the Santa Cecilia Children’s Piano Competition.

The first work was by Mozart, the sonata Kv 282 in E flat major. It is a work that is characterized by beginning with an adagio, when it is normal to start with a more cheerful air, but we are not going to put any buts to Mr. Mozart. The work is very good and his minuet I-II is good enough to declare him his father’s son. The allegro too.

He then performed Robert Schumann’s ‘Humoresque’, a jewel within the author’s piano work. It is a piano composition, divided into twenty sections of different dimensions and character (although initially the composer did not indicate it that way). It is a work of great formal and musical importance. It can be considered as a compendium of all his previous work and the depth of his musical vision, his rich timbre palette and the evocative force of his melodic framework are evident.

Next, he performed the Three Alejandrine Pieces by Antón García Abril who, recently deceased, has left us a legacy of a wide horizon of long-standing works, which have been one of the mainstays in the programming of pieces that move us towards many maritime scenarios of our coasts.

Another Spanish work was ‘El Amor y la Muerte’, by Granados. A work that transports us to his great work ‘Goyescas’, of which he is a part and which was disclosed by his disciples such as Frank Marshall, Alicia de la Rocha or Rosa Sabater.

Finally, Leo de María dared with the Dante sonata by Fran Liszt, a farewell, but not definitive, since we hope that he will visit us again and we can listen to him and applaud him in another concert in better times and not with this news about assaults, wars and other nefarious projects that have us in suspense at this time.

Tuesday, February 23rd of 2022
El Adelantado de Segovia