Alle origini del ‘virtuosismo moderno’
La prospettiva lisztiana sul contributo di Francesco Pollini
Abstract
During his lifetime, Francesco Pollini (Ljubljana, 1762 – Milan,1846) was recognized both as a highly skilled pianist and as a respected composer. His piano method, published by Ricordi in 1812, remained a key pedagogical reference at the Milan Conservatory for decades, while his piano works garnered some international recognition and critical attention.
Franz Liszt was among those who acknowledged Pollini’s contribution to the development of early nineteenth-century piano virtuosity. Drawing on both Liszt’s letters and his critical writings, this article reconstructs the role attributed by Liszt to Pollini as the initiator of a ‘new school’ of piano playing, in which virtuosity is directed toward expression rather than pursued for its own sake. This perspective is set within broader nineteenth-century debates on instrumental virtuosity and the need to reconnect it with spiritual and artistic content, a theme to which Liszt also contributed in his writings of the 1830s and 1840s. An analysis of selected works by Pollini – most notably the Scherzo variazioni e fantasia op. 56 (1830) and the Esercizj in forma di toccata notated on three staves (1820, 1832) – highlights the features of his piano writing that likely impressed the young Liszt. These include multilayered textures, the expansion of accompaniment figures across the entire keyboard, the consistent prominence of the cantabile line, and the transformation of the piano étude from a technical exercise into a composition with full aesthetic autonomy. In this light, Pollini emerges as a discreet yet decisive figure in the evolution of nineteenth-century piano virtuosity, whose legacy Liszt both recognized and carried forward.
