The dedicated Italian pianist talks to Jessica Duchen about her latest monumental recording venture, revelations during lockdown and one very unique thumb
Beatrice Rana
Has any other concert pianist begun their Beethoven journey with the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata? This most mysterious, daunting and magnificent of piano works, a kind of Matterhorn amid the composer’s pianistic Alpine range, is Beatrice Rana’s first climb through the territory in the recording studio. On the one hand, it might appear counterintuitive. On the other hand, there’s nothing like starting right at the top.
Maybe it is emblematic of the way the Covid pandemic turned everyone and everything inside out. ‘I’ve been playing the piano for my whole life,’ the 30-year-old Italian pianist remarks, talking to me on a video call from her flat in Rome. ‘I started giving concerts very early. I didn’t know what it would mean to stay at home without concerts and without a schedule to respect, so at first the lockdown was quite a shock. But it was one of the biggest gifts that I could have musically, because I had time to find that relationship with the piano and with music that I had perhaps lost because I was always practising for a performance. Just to have time to ask myself what I really wanted to play, not necessarily on stage, was wonderful, because I explored repertoire that was not on my list. I don’t think I would have played the “Hammerklavier” without the pandemic.
‘It’s funny because before that, when I was giving interviews, people would ask me, ‘What are you afraid to play in concerts? What are you not ready to perform?’ and my first answer would be solo Beethoven. I didn’t plan any Beethoven in my recital schedule because I was so scared of it.’
The alarm probably goes back to the time when, as a 16-year-old student, she chose the ‘Appassionata’ Sonata for her diploma exam. ‘It is the piece that I have practised the most in my entire life, but I was always so unhappy with the result on stage that I thought maybe Beethoven is just not the composer for me. That was always frustrating, because I love Beethoven so much and I really felt I was missing something.’
Finding a friend in Beethoven
When the pandemic struck, early in spring 2020, Italy was the first European country to face lockdown. Rana soon realised that she would not be able to leave home again for a while. ‘I thought about what I really wanted to do and what could keep me very
