A family affair for pianists

Michele Campanella and his wife Monica Leone perform Mozart's E flat Concerto tomorrow.

The cappuccinos are steaming on the Campobasso terrace when I catch up with Italian pianist Michele Campanella. He is just a few days away from crossing the world to take part in the second concert of the Auckland Philharmonia's APN News & Media Premier series.

"It's a miracle," he says. "I was supposed to come to New Zealand when I first visited Australia, but I was sick and had to cancel the concert. Now, after seven further visits to Australia and 28 years, I am finally coming."

Auckland will not have Campanella solo tomorrow night. He is playing Mozart's E flat Concerto for two pianos, with his wife, Monica Leone.

"It's a family affair on and off the concert stage. We are bringing our son, Francesco," Campanella says. "He is two months old and it's the first time we will be travelling with a child. Everything will be special."

Back in the 1960s, it was Liszt who proved special for the talented young pianist. Indeed, the Italian has won prizes as recently as 1998 for his recordings of the Hungarian composer's music.

"Liszt really appealed to my temperament when I was a young man," Campanella explains. "It was very simple for me to understand his music, whereas it was difficult for me to do the same with Beethoven. But, after many years playing Liszt, my opinions have become a little more sophisticated. He was a much more complicated and interesting man than the one you will see if you only listen to the Hungarian Rhapsodies."

This being Mozart year, with the sparkling K 365 Concerto on tomorrow night's AP bill, it turns out that this composer is second only to Liszt in Campanella's affections.

"In Italy we feel that Mozart is not an Austrian composer but a bridge between middle Europe and the Mediterranean. He is a composer not so far from our sensitivity and we can identify with so much in his music, especially what we call the ironic smile on the surface."

There is also a connection with Italy's favourite art form - "Mozart found so many influences in the Neapolitan school of opera buffa."

Campanella is playing Mozart all the time, he says. He has just performed two other concertos in Italy and, after Auckland, more will follow across the Tasman. "This so-called Mozart year doesn't mean anything to me, because he has been with me all the time. I don't need a centenary to remind me," he adds, with a hearty laugh.

As for tomorrow night's offering: "It's a great piece."

"For the first time in the history of music, Mozart explores the possibility of a dialogue between two pianos, not only a musical dialogue but a psychological one."

Campanella draws operatic comparisons - "it's like a soprano and a tenor talking to one another" - and surprises me with one that is more Wimbledon than La Scala.

"It's just like in tennis," he points out. "You have the ball, send it to your partner and get it back again. All the time the ball goes up and down, right and left and you share in the fantastic cleverness of it all."

For this man, sharing often means working with a conductor and he has been on stage with some of the greats, including Abbado, Muti and Mehta. What does he look for in this most important of partnerships?

"Everybody gives you something different," he stresses, "and I am always open to listening, and flexible enough to take on what a conductor might suggest. But," he says, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "sometimes even the greatest conductors - no names, I'm sorry - are lazy. They are routine, and conduct without true interest. They use their knowledge and ability but without the attention that makes the music magic. When you put all of your ability into it, it is quite different."

* Auckland Philharmonia, Auckland Town Hall, Thurs, Feb 23, 8pm