I was singing in a choir and we were going to give a concert during a summer course in Urbino. I took a harpsichord class there too, out of curiosity. Before long I was playing Bach and wanted to go on. I got to know the harpsichord at an important time in my life. I was 18 and had given up the piano for a year to do my military service. Afterwards, I didn’t want to study that instrument any more. After hesitating a while, I chose the harpsichord, but there weren’t any competent teachers in Italy then. I decided to go to Holland and study with Ton Koopman. I was really lucky to have given my first chamber music concert when I was 19 and had just begun the harpsichord, and I haven’t looked back since. I learned everything in a really hands-on way. I practiced like mad, sometimes nine hours a day, and there were times when I despaired and other times of intense happiness, because I loved the music and the contact with the instrument. When you reach a certain level, you can look at what you’ve done with a bit of distance and put what you’ve learned in order. Other perspectives open up, based on everything you’ve acquired so far.

The approaches to the harpsichord and the piano are very different. I think of the harpsichord as more intellectual, internalized and contained. The piano expresses things directly through immediate sensitivity.

Structure, building and the organization of articulation all interest me and agree with my mathematical mind. The harpsichord has two sides: one is expressive, the other is cool-headed and has to do with the mechanism of the fingers. The two aspects are blended together in the piano.

Do you think the harpsichord repertoire allows for effusion and expressiveness?

It depends. Frescobaldi’s music is very lyrical, Couperin’s is impassioned—passion mixed with gracefulness, and it’s gracefulness that is the most difficult to express, to recreate.

Did your love of music lead to an interest in Baroque art?

Living in Rome is such a privilege! It’s a complete city. When I take a walk, I can see the whole of art history. Art gives you a better approach to music and develops your sensitivity. The contrasts in Caravaggio’s paintings are also part of Frescobaldi’s and Monteverdi’s music. There are points in common between painting, music, architecture and literature.

How would you define Baroque music?

The most important thing for me is that it’s conversational music. Counterpoint is a dialogue; you learn to listen, to let someone else speak or to impose your own voice. Working on The Art of Fugue from this standpoint is an incredibly enriching experience. I like music that makes you give everyone a chance to express himself.

Don’t you think romantic music is much more individualistic because it’s expressive in an egotistical way, and that, all in all, it’s not as convivial?

Yes, because it’s based on romantic ideas that accentuate the hero concept. Earlier music is the music of a gathering of people. They bought scores and got together after meals to sing simple, interesting things. They gave concerts, little sonatas for two or three players. Music was used in a completely different way. Today, you can listen to anything whenever you like. In the 17th century if you wanted to hear an instrument you had to play it yourself or pay someone else to play it. It was a rare event, and precious to the ear.

Sacred music didn't exist, in a way. Church music was written in exactly the same way as music for the theater. It was part of a strategy to attract people to church

You founded the Concerto Italiano in 1984. Why?

Meeting Fabio Biondi in Rome led to the birth of Concerto Italiano. Fabio was our concertmaster. It was hard to play early music in Italy then; we didn’t have the means and the direction in which we should go wasn’t clear. Things became defined when I realized everything that could be done with vocal music. We were able to build up a group quickly, in conditions that let us work steadily.

Was there a repertory you explored then?

The most important thing was to bring the music back to its cultural roots—that is, to bring Monteverdi back to Italy and forget the idea that he was born in England! At the time there were only English groups performing secular polyphony. I admired their work; I wasn’t trying to make a war. But some journalists said, ‘You have destroyed the English empire...!’