If it were not for the cascade of curls that have become white, it would seem the Giovanni Allevi of all time: a shirt with the image of Goldrake, sneakers and contagious smile. But as soon as we ask him if today he touched the piano, he turns and from the shirt you can see the bust that at least so partially soothing the back pain that has accompanied him for over two years, since he discovered that he has a multiple myeloma, a rare tumor that affects the bone marrow. “I can no longer play often, because if I am sitting for a long time after a while it becomes unbearable.” Giovanni told this phase of his life in the book I nine gifts, he still started making concerts, and above all he composed a lot of new music.
In the book you say that it does not accept the pain, welcomes it. In what sense?
«The word acceptance makes me think about a defeat, while the acceptance of pain means preparing my body to soften against him to understand it. Because my pain always accompanies me, but it is never the same as itself. This is why I keep a diary that helps me understand what makes it vary: maybe it depends on what I ate, on the gymnastics I did, or on the fact that today is a beautiful day. Already just looking at this sky so clear and bright makes me breathe better and I realize that breathing positively affects the perception of my pain ».
Job, in the Bible, gets angry with God, he wonders what evil he did to deserve all the misfortunes that hit him. Is it a question you asked yourself too?
“While I was hospitalized at the Cancer Institute in Milan, next to my bed to make an infusion there was a seven -year -old girl. I asked myself the reason for his suffering: it is the great question about innocent pain. My mother, who is catechist, would have told me that God has a project for us to good for each of us, that evil is always the fruit of man’s free will. But for me there is no answer ».
Help you prayer?
“Very, very much. But I do not ask God to heal, at most to help me endure all this suffering. For me, prayer is first of all meditation. When I was a child, my mother led me to hear the rosary. The words that repeated these women, many of them elderly, turned into a mantra that enveloped me to such an extent that in my eyes they became one: it was beautiful. Those old men had caught the essence of prayer, which is then the same goal of oriental meditation: abandoning one’s individuality to enter a more extended dimension in which we feel united to everyone. At the same time, with meditation we seek the detached observer that everyone has within himself, who observes thoughts and pains without judging them, but with compassion ».
But what did you think when you knew you were sick?
«For months I was tormented by a back pain that turned into a thriving pain during a concert in Vienna. When I knew I had a myeloma, I thought: “Ok, now we will finally be able to do something against this pain”. And now it is as if the disease had catapulted me into another dimension, in which all the masks fell, all the conditioning that society wants to impose on it: to always be perfect, bright and successful. When all this collapsed, I lived it as a liberation ».
There is a phrase that is repeated so often that it is cloying: the disease has changed me for the better. As a result, one could say: “So I am happy that the disease entered my life”. What do you think?
«Give me a quarter of an hour to reflect … no, no, how can I be happy to have seen death in the face? It is a frightening experience that I would like to have never lived. But it went like this and then rather than abandoning himself to despair, I try to make sense of my illness ».
Why did you decide to share this path on social media?
«In 2019 I had embarked on a tour that I had to stop because of Covid. After the emergency, I fell ill. Many people who had perhaps bought the ticket waited to see me on a stage and asked questions about social media. Then I replied, however trying not to stop at my individual situation to open a discussion on this society that refuses pain and, ultimately, the concept of death ».
Don’t you fear that in this way the sick Giovanni Allevi take over the Giovanni Allevi musician?
«No, because the sick Giovanni Allevi proved to be a Giovanni Allevi musician to the nth degree, much more visceral. Through the music that I make up I have the feeling of transforming pain into light. As soon as I knew I had a myeloma, I went to see what musical notes corresponded to the letters of that word, according to a mathematical procedure also used by Bach: they are do – La Bemolle – M – Si – re – do. Ring one after the other they form a strange, very romantic melody. From this sequence was born a concert for cello and orchestra, a diary in music of the emotions that I felt in the hospital and that I can’t wait to make the public felt ».
And also changed your way of playing the piano?
“For years I have chased perfection in execution. The disease also freed me with this burden. In the hospital I wrote the concert for cello and orchestra, also because I feared that I would never play the piano again. Then I wrote a song that is titled Two Fingers, two fingers, thinking that if the tremor in the hands that afflicts me had worsened, maybe I would still have managed to play even with two fingers. In the end I managed to return to a stage, but in Locarno because of the tremor in the hands I had to stop my execution. I was about to announce my definitive retreat from the scenes, when I understood that the public does not want perfection. With this awareness, now I face the concerts animated by a joy never tested ».
Is there a musician that you feel particularly close at the moment?
«I recently listened to Bach’s Goldberg variations in the two executions of Glenn Gould. As is known, the second version, recorded at the end of his career, is much slower than that made in his youth. I compared the execution of one of my songs, back to life, made in 2009 at the Arena in Verona and a few months ago and I noticed that I also tend to play more slowly, to concentrate more on every single note “.
While you were in the hospital you published a photo of you lying with a kitten asleep on the chest. Do you still have it?
“Yes, when I keep it in my arms, especially during meditation, I have the feeling that all nature embraces me, because the cat contains in itself all its qualities: beauty, elegance, acceptance, but also the wild and unpredictable side”.
Do you always eat a chocolate cake before each concert?
«I had already stopped for several years before I got sick because I had become a food maniac. Now I feel like saying: eat what you want! Seriously, I continue to be careful, but when a slice of chocolate cake occurs, I live it as an ecstatic experience, as if I listened to the Tristan and Isotta of Wagner ».
What does the word recovery mean for you?
«Myloma is a chronic neoplasm, so at the moment according to medicine it never heals. Then I changed perspective. I think I will not heal the day when the analyzes will confirm that the tumor is gone, perhaps when I am 90, but I want to heal day after day. If I am here to talk to you, if there is a beautiful sun outside, if my back pain today allows me to be happy, then I am healed ».
