Rosa Antonelli has been playing the piano since she was three-and-a-half years old. The child of Italian immigrants who left their homeland after World War II, Antonelli grew up in Argentina, where she heard the music of popular tangos, the opera music her mother sang, and the sounds of Buenos Aires, a town steeped in the melancholy and nostalgia of its large Italian immigrant population. She was first inspired when she heard her teacher playing the piano in the classroom and learned the instrument by using the piano her teacher kept in a small shed in the backyard. But in Argentina she first learned the work of European classical composers—Lizst, Chopin, Beethoven—before she could approach the work of the Latin American composers she would later champion and admire. She had been working and performing widely across Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and Latin America before she was ready, as she explains, for the tango. The loss of homeland, the disconnection from her cultural heritage and her Italian family, as well as the poverty and struggle of her life in Argentina, were each tied to the music of the tango. And Piazzolla’s tangos, which include influences from the composer’s time studying abroad in Europe and the United States, spoke to her of the nostalgia and melancholy she had long tried to ignore. When she was ready, she learned everything she could about Piazzolla—his life, his work, his influences—and absorbed his history so that her performance could, as closely as possible, be a true interpretation of his intentions. Although she loves to perform, and has toured in many countries since her first tour of Europe in 1987, Antonelli is hesitant to become comfortable in the spotlight. She is a meticulous and dedicated student of music, but she is also extremely critical of herself and still has difficulty watching recordings of her past performances. During performance, she makes every effort to focus on the piano, even playing with her eyes closed to better listen to the sound she wants to produce with the instrument.

For this interview, I asked Antonelli about her performances at Carnegie Hall and for the Lambs Foundation, but we did not watch her clips together. Had we done so, I think it would have been as difficult as attempting to pass into the world of a mirror, or trying to discover a place that only exists on the other side of the glass. That mystery, the ineffable connection between a musician and her instrument, is very tangible for Antonelli. We attempted to get at the center of her motivation as an artist, her work as an advocate for the work of classical Latin American composers, and her relationship with the nostalgia and melancholy that always seems to follow her.

After reading your three previous interviews with Robert Schulslaper for Fanfare (33:5, 35:1, and 36:4), I was struck by how visceral musical history seems to you—especially when you heard that a certain venue had been a favorite place for Mozart or Rubenstein to play. That connection was so immediate and compelling for you, even though you live now (in the future). I’m wondering about your connection to classical music history and how the connection informs your playing, if you see yourself as an extension of the past, in a way.

It’s an interesting question, and I have an honest answer to that. I read the articles you wrote, which I love, and I feel that it will be important for me to tell you this. The reason I started with classical music is because my mother was an opera singer and actress in Italy. And then after World War II when she moved with my father to Argentina, she couldn’t pursue her career because they lost everything in the war. When she left her career, she was very young and very successful. I remember being a child and seeing and wearing all her clothes. The costume clothes were very big for me. I remember that with so much affection and love. And then one day when I went to the kindergarten things changed for me. In Argentina we have music at school from the beginning, it’s almost mandatory. The way we learn music is that the teacher plays some songs, she teaches us the lyrics, and we sing with her. Every time the teacher was playing I felt very emotional with the music and then I told my mom: “Mom, I want to do what she’s doing to me.” And my mom asked, “What’s she doing to you?” And I said, you know she touches the piano with the fingers and I feel a need to cry. I said that I want to do that same thing with people; I want people to feel emotions when I’m playing piano.

This is how the story started. She said that often I was in the backyard looking at and studying my hands the whole time—fascinated with them, dreaming what I could do with my hands. And still today, for me it’s a mystery how a human being can touch an object like the piano and evoke feelings. It is not a living being and yet some people, some musicians, make you feel so much, but with others you don’t feel anything. I feel the difference. That was my dream, and so my mother put me in piano lessons right away. I was three-and-a-half. We didn’t even have money to pay for the lessons, but the teacher was so nice to me, she charged me less and then she gave me one of her pianos to practice on every day. Sometimes I escaped from school, left in the middle of the school day, and went to this room in the backyard of her home to practice for hours. At times my mom was desperately looking for me and finally called my teacher, who said, “Your daughter is safe and happy in my backyard practicing.” She was so relieved and after that she always knew where I was. I often practiced there until late at night with just a small light. My teacher called me “La lucecita del fondo,” the little light of the backyard. And that’s the way it started. I created an imaginary audience that I was playing for and creating deep emotions for. That led me to believe that there is something there beyond the things you really see with your eyes and something that we cannot explain. I’m still fascinated by that.

Did you ever talk to your mother about her connection with singing? I’m wondering if she had a similar emotional understanding or connection.

Yes, we could talk about that when I got older. I always was very shy. Absolutely shy! I didn’t talk to anyone because of my situation of being so poor. It was not always like that; in fact we were from royalty in Italy, but in Argentina we didn’t have anything. My mother always said to me, “Don’t feel insecure about yourself. You have something special that when you play, people feel a lot of emotions. And then she said, “That also happened to me when I was performing.” I remember she told me the story that she had to perform in a play when she was 15 years old; she had to play the role of an old woman who lost her husband, because the real actress got sick. When she finished, the audience was all crying and gave her a standing ovation; they could not believe a teenager could embody the emotions of an old woman in this situation. Obviously we had the same talent for evoking strong feelings.

That’s interesting. It reminds me of something else you said in other interviews—that you leave a rose on a chair for your mom whenever you give performances.

Yes; unfortunately my father couldn’t support me. He was so traumatized by fighting in the Second World War. He was only 16 and he didn’t want to kill anybody. He couldn’t understand me and my passion for the music. And my mom was the only one who supported me with no conditions. That’s why she has always a place wherever I am.

That’s really beautiful, I think. Speaking of overcoming that shyness, and becoming a performer, one of the things that struck me about reading your previous interviews was how many times you asked yourself “How can I do this?” and then you went ahead and did it. I don’t know if that’s something you can explain, but what sort of happens in that moment to push you from being so overwhelmed to just saying, “All right, I’m here, I’m doing this”?

What happens is that first, I feel how much I love to give. Then, I don’t take the performance as an act of being at the center of a big hall with people clapping. I don’t see myself as the center of attention. They say I am an actress, I am a concert pianist, but I don’t have that kind of ego. What I feel in the moment on the stage is that this is an act of connecting with my heart to the audience, a kind of spiritual communication with the audience. Of course to get to that point you have to have great preparation; the responsibility of being a good artist, practicing as much as you can, understanding the history, style, and feelings of the composer, everything that is related to a good interpretation. Then, when you get to that point, you can translate and convey those feelings to another person—in a sense “channeling” the composer.

I always feel that in life you have a choice. You can say, “Oh, I will not be able to do this,” or “I am prepared and in touch with the composer’s message, and I can do it.” Because I believe in all of that. I believe in God, in angels, and more than anything in the spiritual connection that is in the heart of human beings. Then, when I am on the stage, just seeing the people is just like a click, like saying, “Oh, we are together, we are going to share these beautiful feelings,” and all that nervousness is shattered like magic. Until the moment I am on stage at the concert, I’m a nervous wreck. What if I forget this note? Etc. And then I say, no, everything is inside, it’s time to jump to the different level, the level of the spirit, the level of communication. I have so much respect for that, that I am certain this will happen. I ask my angels to guide my hands. The rest is turning the electric light switch on; instead of electricity it is the spiritual power. It’s something magical.

It’s just inexplicable. And that feeling or that ability to convey something is only attainable in performance. You could practice for years and never perform, but you would never have that experience.

Yes, it is a beautiful experience, it is one of the happiest moments of my life and I enjoy it tremendously. I have felt this way since I was a little girl and I consider myself very fortunate that this has never changed. I wish I could perform more because it’s such a beautiful feeling. After a performance people say to me, “Oh, you moved my heart, because you play with your heart; thank you so much.” When people tell me this, that’s the best gift, the best feeling in the world for me. The audience is giving me so much, and I’m so thankful for that.

What message do you hope to give to your audience? Is that message ever altered or connected to the program or the music you’ve chosen to perform, or is it something more organic and arises from within the performance?

I hope they get the message that the composer wanted to deliver from each of the pieces when he created them—for example if I play a piece by Piazzolla such as his tango Chau Paris, which is about the nostalgia he felt when he had to go back to Argentina after living in Paris for so many years. This is what he felt when he wrote the tango. I try to convey, to be just like a medium, what he felt, and to transmit that to the audience members, so that they understand the composer’s message.

Of all the clips, Piazzolla’s pieces are the most represented. You mentioned in previous interviews that you weren’t ready for the tango. And then you seemed to have launched—at least with these concerts—fully into Piazzolla’s mindset of the tango. How did you move from not being ready and then being like, “Ok, now I can perform these pieces”?

The thing that gave me the most movement of being ready is to realize and feel what Piazzolla felt. Let me go back a bit in my own life to a turning point in my understanding of myself and Piazzolla. It came when I saw the movie The History of the Tango. Even though we listened to tangos at home growing up, I realized I never fully understood the meaning. In that movie. I saw on the screen what I had always felt in my life, as an Italian immigrant, but had not allowed myself face those feelings. The Italians were afraid of another world war and many escaped to Argentina. In most cases they left Europe very quickly and left behind many loved ones and personal belongings. In some cases, like me, I did not know my relatives. I didn’t meet my aunts and uncles until I was 16, and my grandmother when I was 20.

What I learned from this movie was that all the Italian immigrants—over 60 per cent of Argentinians today are fully or partially of Italian descent—gathered in the cafes in Argentina in Buenos Aires, and shared those feelings of nostalgia and melancholy. But they also shared feelings of hope and strong passions for a beginning, a new life. This is how the tango was born. Also, I then realized I had absorbed all this melancholy, passion, and hope from my family, without fully being conscious of it. This realization brought out my submerged, deep feelings and made me cry. But also it somehow finally freed me up to be able to start performing the tango and allowed me to truly show my own feelings.

The original tangos were performed in the small cabarets and only for singing and dancing, with popular instruments. It was considered lower-class expression and entertainment. It was Piazzolla, a son of Italian immigrants, who elevated the tango from the dance floor and brought it to the concert stage. He transformed the original tango, incorporating harmonies and rhythms of classical and jazz music. We should not forget that he was a classical composer. He created the “new tango” or classical tango. This is why I really love to perform his music, and why I understand Piazzolla and his tangos.

Do you think that now that you’ve confronted that nostalgia, that melancholy, that the message of the immigrant is what you are conveying to the audience?

Yes. I feel that way. And I feel gratified and fulfilled that I am conveying that feeling message and they understand it. I have a funny story relating to this. After my first concert at Carnegie Hall with a complete program of only classical Latin American composers, I was expecting the reviews. I knew that Harris Goldsmith, who was a very well respected and demanding critic, was in the audience. It was a couple of days later at 7:00 am and I was reading his review. My husband got up and saw me crying at the table. He said, “What is the matter, sweetheart?” And I said, “Look what he wrote about me, about Piazzolla.” Being very nervous and not trusting my English so well, I misread—I thought he didn’t like it and was devastated. And my husband read it and he said, “You know, he’s saying that he never really understood Piazzolla until he listened to you at Carnegie Hall that night.” That was the most beautiful thing I could have heard. I was so anxious that I read the opposite! He gave me the encouragement, of someone so well respected, to keep on playing and introducing Piazzolla to the world.

You mentioned in another interview that you met Piazzolla. Is that true?

Yes, in Argentina. I was taken by the mother of one of my friend’s to a performance of his. One little-known fact about Piazzolla was that he also played the bandoneón, an accordion-like instrument, in a small group that he led. I saw him one of the times he was performing in the salons in Buenos Aires; but I was a teenager and very much into Chopin at the time. So at that moment I did not pay much attention to him or his music and, as I mentioned before, I rejected the tango as an art form at that time. But I was impressed with his passion when he played the bandoneón and later in life I learned the bandoneón myself. I do regret that I didn’t give him the attention that he deserved.

But how could you know at that time, you know?

[Laughs] Yes! Impossible! But a lot of people loved the tango. My mom used to listen to the famous Carlos Gardel all the time at home; he was singing popular tangos and later he was in movies. But as with Piazzolla, I never paid very much attention. At the time Piazzolla had not yet taken the tango from the dance floor to the concert stage. But as you know, his classical tangos many years later became popular all over the world. For example, Yo-Yo Ma is playing and recording Piazzolla tangos in all the major venues.

I always think of the tango as a dance. Even with the European and jazz influences, the tango always has an inherent tension, a push and pull. I’m wondering if, as performer, if you rely on that tension while playing. How do you sort of approach that dynamic of the tension?

This is a very good question and I think we could discuss this for hours. First we have to look at the sources of the tension—socially, historically, and emotionally within the dance itself. The tango dance is paradoxical. Two people are intimately and even erotically connected (pull towards), yet they are fiercely independent and at times rejecting (push away). It is a mixture of many emotions. To add to the complexity, the music itself is a mixture of many different styles and influences of cultures—African, Italian, etc. The bandoneón instrument itself was developed in Germany. The push and pull was also evident in the historical, political, and societal aspects. The tango went from being a dance of the slums and bordellos, hidden from high society and prohibited by “decent” families, to being the most famous style and dance of the upper classes.

Since the only tangos I am playing are the Piazzolla tangos (which I consider a classical tango), I understand and studied the push and pulls that Piazzolla created in his nuevo tango. In his own music history, he was a prolific classical composer, famous in Europe and the United States. He created this tango, which keeps the essential spirit of the tango of the “golden age,” but he added dissonance, chromatic harmony, and a wider range of rhythm. It’s ironic that tango dancers rejected him because he would not allow them to dance when he was playing, even when his small group played in the salons.

In his personal life, being a son of immigrants born in Buenos Aires and moving to New York at a very early age, he had much instability emotionally, physically, and musically (in the music he was exposed to); but in all this “push and pull,” since he made the decision to dedicate his life to the new tango, he had a constant thread that made him strong. He understood what he was doing and accepted that he, as a musical innovator, prisoner, and leader, would not benefit much in his lifetime. He even said in his book that his wish was that his music would live on after him, all over the world.

As a performer, I rely completely on all this tension, since I deeply understand him in all his different aspects. As I am devoted to promote his work (as well as all the classical Latin American music), I approach and enjoy this dynamic of tension which he created with so much passion. On the stage I try to connect with his spirit and I consider myself at that moment a simple messenger of his revolutionary, romantic, and passionate music, which I profoundly admire. To perform many of Piazzolla’s tangos at Carnegie Hall was first a big challenge and then also a dream. It was not until the end of this concert, with the tremendous positive response from the audience, almost 3,000 people, that I truly realized that my mission and dream had come true.

I think it’s really admirable that you’re an advocate for classical Latin American music, but do you think that you’ll go back to performing more traditional, classical music?

Thank you! It was not an easy decision at the beginning, but now I am proud of it. Since this wonderful music is younger than European classical music it has so much in it to be discovered, to be explored and promoted. I found magnificent music which was never played before and the audience loved it. I would love to perform more traditional classical music, and this is why very often I play Chopin or Liszt as encores. It’s funny because at the last concert at Carnegie Hall in 2014, the president of Albany Records was there in the audience, and he said to me afterwards, “Rosa, the way you play these composers”—I was playing Albéniz, Granados, Ginastera, Piazzolla, Ponce, etc.—“and all this music is so Romantic that our next project should be Chopin and Piazzolla.” I’ve loved Chopin! All my life!

I loved the Chopin nocturne you included with the clips.

That was my first encore, at Carnegie Hall! You see! This particular nocturne was my mom’s favorite piece by Chopin. In one of her trips back to Italy to see her family she got me the music of this piece and a record called Rarezas by Chopin performed by Pomerantz. Unforgettable!

Do you have a different approach to Chopin than you do to Latin American composers?

When I studied Chopin I tred to search out information all about him—his personal life, his background, his music, the social and historic events at that time, all I could to understand how his compositions should be played the best. What helped me a lot was the book that his students wrote. In this book I have learned how much he loved to teach and how he explained directly to his students the way that the phrase, pedal, rubato, etc. has to be played.

Then, when I performed in Poland, I think that I got his essence. I performed a lot in Poland. I performed in his hometown, for the Chopin Society, and also toured every day to a different city in Poland. I went to his home at Żelazowa Wola; I breathed the air in that home, and walked around all these acres where he was with his teacher. I pictured him talking about music and about philosophy….It was something so mystical, philosophical, and Romantic. I saw his kitchen, his bedroom, where he was cooking. I think I absorbed already all his life, the way he was living, the way he was suffering with the revolution and how he reacted with his Romanticism to the history he had to live. When I perform Chopin, all of this comes together through his music. When I am really deep into the composer, the piece, it becomes part of me, and I feel free and ready to deliver it to the audience.

To come back to your question, I have to say that I approach the classical Latin American music with the same respect and dedication and love.

That’s incredible. To see what Chopin saw every day.

Yes, I was crying. I saw it all. I felt how weak he was and how the illness he had didn’t stop him from creating this exquisite, refined Romantic music. And when he didn’t feel strong enough to show how passionate, energetic, and fast his music should be played, he asked his friend Liszt, who was strong and technically brilliant, to perform his compositions the way he created them. I felt like I was transported in a time machine and was there next to him

How did you get involved with the Lambs Foundation concert?

I became a member of the club after a member listened to me playing in a concert and proposed to sponsor me and join the club. She was a famous actress. After that I performed at the club many times, and because of the condition of the pianos, Steinway sent me the pianos for my performances there. The club was founded in the 1800s, in London. Many great actors, actresses, directors, and writers of famous movies and plays joined this foundation, and the most well-known branch has continued in New York.

The president, who is very responsible and really loves all the arts, and most of the members were dreaming of having their own beautiful Steinway piano for more and better performances. I am a romantic, which now you must know, and I said, “Marc! We can do a fundraiser for a new piano!” After that we started with the project. Steinway donated the hall for my fundraising concert, which was very successful. We got the new Steinway! A few months later, on August 8 of this year, I performed the first celebration concert on the new Steinway at the Club to a sold-out recital. Another dream that came true!

When you play in performance, do you listen for the audience listening? I mean, do you sort of listen for them listening and engaging with your performance or are you concentrating more on your performance?

It’s a very interesting question because it’s a combination. I feel how they hear and how they receive the music. I sense it through the silence, the complete silence. There is a wave of emotions that I send to them and then they give it back to me. I concentrate on the pieces, but this emotional communication is what moves me more and more during the performances. It’s beautiful. As I said before, they are giving me so much! In one of the articles with Robert, I mentioned that since that Carnegie Hall concert, I am experiencing special and mystical feelings during my performances.

We don’t often see your face in those clips, but we can tell that you are very focused on the piano. Your arms are so beautiful, too. We can see the power extending from the tips of your fingers all the way to the top of your shoulder. Aside from preparing and learning the music and your performance, I’m curious how you mentally and physically prepared to give this concert at Carnegie Hall.

The mental and physical training, besides learning the music before a big concert like Carnegie Hall, is extremely important. Mentally I try to feel like the piano is not hard, not a piece of wood or an object, or “outside of me.” Also, sometimes just the size of the Model D grand piano can be intimidating. I imagine it is part of my body, an extension. I like to connect with it imagining that I am touching the strings instead of striking the keys where I can feel it more as a percussion instrument.

The discipline and emotional strength to be positive and concentrate on a bigger goal, which is the “message of the composer,” helps me to stay away from the hesitation and nervousness which can create a distraction and work against myself. I found that to picture the real meaning of a performance helps me to avoid distraction (which will distort the real meaning of the music I will perform) and will help convey what the composer wished to express. To focus on what I will give sincerely to the audience members, who deserve the best, is a mental and emotional training that comes from my heart and makes me feel confident and calm. The piano is part of my body, a continuation of it and we become one to communicate.

The physical training it is very important. I train with several exercises for the body, strengthening as well as relaxing the muscles. The hand exercises are very important as well and I have a daily routine for each muscle of the hand, arm, and forearm. Actually I wrote a book in 2013, Piano: The Spirit of Technique and Interpretation, with all these training exercises which I developed through the years. I follow them religiously; it is not easy, but I love it. This book, on Amazon, of course has also my philosophy and my explanation of how I produce the sound that I do.

It’s so different from playing the violin, where the performer’s connection with the audience is so important. But with your performance, I didn’t need to see your eyes moving on the keys. I knew you were really focused. It’s like you said, you became an extension of the instrument or vice versa, the piano became an extension of you.

Exactly, that’s the way I feel. Because sometimes also I feel the need to cry. Many times I close my eyes, because I can hear my sound better. I feel that the more senses you use—for example the eyes, if you are looking about so much—you get distracted, because the light is not perfect, etc. If you start paying attention too much to those things, you will never get to the real meaning of the music. Sometimes I perform almost in the dark, and I always say that my fingers know where they have to go. And then sometimes I cry, and so I close my eyes when I feel a little shy or embarrassed so that the audience does not see me being so emotional. And sometimes I cannot hide it and at the end of some pieces I cannot even get up because I was crying. People feel it and see it, but they are emotionally with me and I realize then it’s not embarrassing at all. People tell me this is beautiful, but still I am shy. If I see the audience on the right side, I’m sure I couldn’t go to that space of inspiration. It would be too distracting; otherwise, I’d get too far away from the music. So I will keep my hair the way it is!

So, you’re still shy playing. Is that something you think you will ever overcome?

No, I will never overcome that. Because, for example, if I go to a party after a performance, and people are waiting for me, it is hard for me to enter the room with all those people, since I am still in the “performance zone.” I get nervous and hesitant and actually try to avoid large groups. I still feel like a little girl, and I wish I could be in a corner. I’ve gotten better through the years since my childhood, when I was studying in Argentina. At that time I didn’t talk to anyone; almost no one knew what my voice sounded like. Performing is the way I have communicated my best.

Is it difficult to watch recordings of your performance?

Yes, very hard, because I am very hard on myself. Before a big performance I record myself 100 times! I pretend I am on a stage and record it, and then afterward I sit and listen as if the person in the video is another pianist who I need to judge. Then I write myself notes—need more pianissimo here, louder in this phrase, breathe more here, etc.—and I make notes in my music. Then I try it again and again until I am satisfied. That’s why when I perform, I have that sensitivity. I love to give my best.

When finally I got the DVD of my Carnegie Hall concert of 2011, I couldn’t watch it for two weeks. When I finally did watch it, I was crying. When I saw the response of the audience, I was so proud that I did it the way I dreamed it.

I think to perform at that stage, that level of perfection is key.

Yes, and then you don’t want to disappoint anybody; you don’t want to disappoint yourself. It’s a very big commitment, a very big responsibility, but it’s worth every bit of sacrifice and effort in your life when you achieve it!

Will you be back at Carnegie Hall?

Yes, I think actually we are planning maybe for next year, but in two years for sure. I’m actually working on that, at this particular moment.

What else is next?

Next, I have a new album; I am currently trying to decide on the pieces. You are very intuitive to mention Chopin because I am thinking about recording Piazzolla and Chopin, both on the new album. And I started planning several concerts; performing in Argentina, and several projects in Europe and Latin America. Now I’m just trying to settle the dates.