«A warm, muffled sound, enveloping like a wool blanket on a cold day»: this is the figure of “What I felt”the new publication by the composer, pianist and conductor Francesco Maria Mancarella. At the center of his new work is the use of the technique of prepared piano. To record it, the author modified a Kawai grand piano with very high quality felts, positioned in specific registers.
The title recalls a double meaning, deriving from the English word “felt”: on one side the felt itself inserted between the hammer and the strings, dampening the vibrations; on the other, feeling (understood as the past tense of the verb to feel), the pure emotion that music translates into notes. «”What I felt” is what I feel or rather, what I felt at the moment of composition, when I find myself, quoting Rick Rubin, in that state of ecstasy that makes me understand that the time has come to record» states the composer.
Although the soul of the album is acoustic, it is enriched with electronics (added later) and other instruments, but “the songs that were composed were already thought out in the head as if there were other notes, other sounds”. For the occasion, he rediscovered a keyboard purchased 17 years ago: «I plugged everything in, I said let’s see what comes out. What I was looking for came out.” The work is a crossover between classical, jazz and contemporaryan introspection “free from gender boundaries” which, according to the master, expresses peace, harmony and freedom.
Mancarella’s approach is profoundly synesthetic, as demonstrated by his invention “the piano that paints”patented in 2014. The artist does not connect the single note to a color (as Scriabin did), but connects the context to the chromatic emotion. «I don’t connect note-color, but I connect context with color» he explains, as his recording project is entirely instantaneous and unrepeatable. The piano, modified with small plungers dipped in color, gives him back “the same energy” that he gives it. While performing all over the world, he evokes the sounds and feelings of home. «Salento is a distinctive trait of my character. I don’t want to lose it to remember the sounds of the sea, especially the colors of the sea.” After having conducted the orchestra for Alessandra Amoroso at the Sanremo Festival in 2024, Mancarella is preparing to bring the album in concert with the “WHAT I FELT LIVE 2025” tour, which will include his inseparable piano that he paints and some of the electronics, accompanied by musicians also present on the album.
These are the first dates on the calendar:
14 November – San Leonardo Theater – Bologna
16 November – Franco Parenti Theater – Milan (as part of The Music Room review)
21 November – Paisiello Theater – Lecce
