Category Archives: Concert

The Dead Live Anew at Bagni di Lucca’s Anglican Cemetery

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In 1842, the ruler of the duchy of Lucca, Carlo Ludovico di Borbone, granted the English colony of Bagni di Lucca the right to found a protestant cemetery. A place called “al Prato Santo” (‘At the Holy Field’) was chosen on the opposite side of the river Lima and the graveyard was opened in 1844. It was in use until 1953 and there are one hundred and thirty seven individuals who rest there. In 1982, with the end of a legacy destined for maintenance, the cemetery was purchased by the Municipality of Bagni di Lucca. It is now managed by the town’s Michel de Montaigne Foundation and the Lucca Historical Institute.

Among those buried here, often with monuments made by renowned sculptors such as Benjamin Gibson, Giuseppe Norfini and Emilio Duccini, are the sister of the President of the United States of America Stephen Grover Cleveland, the writer ‘Ouida’, Henry and Elizabeth Stisted (the founders of Bagni’s Anglican church)  and the Irish entomologist Alexander Henry Haliday.

For those of us who prefer the romantic view of a cemetery as a place of decay with gravestones decomposing under a jungle of ivy and other creepers, a place haunted by bats and crows, a symbol of life’s ultimate futility and a site of melancholic and solemn reflections it might seem a contradiction to appreciate these ancient tombs restored, oxymoronically, to new life and I have often felt this way. However, I am now resigned to the fact that the aim of Bagni’s De Montaigne cultural association is to restore all the monuments it contains to their pristine glory. This is because in addition, to the names of the graves’ occupants the restoration has given fresh remembrance in the form of those who not only have munificently funded their renovation but also in the fact that several of the sepulchres have received a second dedication to recently deceased inhabitants and visitors to Bagni di Lucca. Thus, some tombs may have a triple dedication: the original occupant, the person who has given funds to restore it and the new dedication to a departed lover of Bagni di Lucca. Some even have a further association as the name of the tomb’s restorer is also mentioned. Sadly, in one case this has meant a fourth remembrance since the restorer in charge of the iron railings of several of the tombs recently died prematurely aged forty.

Last Saturday, 5th September, at the English cemetery of Bagni di Lucca in the aureate sunshine of a late September afternoon, five newly restored funeral monuments were inaugurated, raising the cemetery’s restored monuments to fifty five.

(Prof Marcello Cherubini, director of the De Montaigne Foundation and Bruno Micheletti of the Bagni di Lucca branch of the Historical Institute, the two principal organisers of yesterday’s event)

The renewal of one funeral monument was dedicated to the memory of Tony Bareham, protagonist of the Montaigne Foundation’s international conferences of the and himself a benefactor of the cemetery since he provided funds for the restoration of the writer Louise de la Ramée’s, (better known by her nickname of ‘Ouida’) monument. Bareham dedicated this restoration to the memory of his wife who had died a few years previously. This circumstance shows to perfection how one tomb can receive associations well beyond its inhumed dweller.

Another tomb was reinstated in memory of Umberto Guidugli, a notary who died of Covid-19.  He was a keen visitor to Bagni di Lucca and a supporter and friend of its Montaigne Foundation and the Historical Institute. A third monument was dedicated to all the doctors, nurses, health personnel, pharmacists, volunteers who sacrificed their lives to help those affected by the recent pandemic. Because of this reason, a representative of the Bagni di Lucca committee of the Italian Red Cross was present. Again this shows how supposedly irrelevant monuments from a past and largely forgotten age may be made significant again for our present very troubled age where, once again, we are all suffering under a pandemia as threatening as that ‘Spanish Flu’ of 1918 which killed two of the cemetery’s occupants Nelly Erichsen and Rose Elizabeth Cleveland whose tombs have also been lovingly restored.

Finally, there was the restoration of the Caccia family tomb. Colonel of the Bersaglieri, Mario Caccia was a participant in Italy’s wars of independence and died in Peschiera in 1879. This was a particularly moving moment in the afternoon’s proceedings.

A trumpeter from the famous Italian Bersaglieri troop played the Italian equivalent of the ‘Last Post’ on his trumpet:

Caccia was honoured with the laying on his grave of a small laurel wreath by other bersaglieri all wearing their traditional helmets adorned with black capon feathers.

The proceedings were completed by a delightful concert held in a suitably cooling orchard by the Lima River.

The performers were “Sax off limits”: an ensemble of twenty saxophones from the “G. Puccini” Conservatory of Music of La Spezia. This was the programme:

One of the items, Puccini’s ‘Crisantemi elegy’, has become something of a leitmotiv for Bagni di Lucca’s cemetery. I remember it being played (by a string quartet this time) in the presence of Puccini’s grand-daughter Simonetta who was a keen supporter of the efforts to restore the cemetery and who renewed her love for a town which was equally cherished by her distinguished ancestor.

It was a brave effort to play Beethoven’s potent ‘Coriolan’ overture on saxophones and it was surprisingly well hit off. For me, however, Rossini’s early sonata was a happier choice. There were two very welcome encores: first a trifle of a march called ‘Scossa Elettrica’ by Puccini written to celebrate the centenary of the invention of the galvanic battery:

and second, a Piazzolla tango. As many will know Piazzolla is almost a local lad; see my post at  https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/tango-where-astor-piazzolla-originated-from/ to find out why.

 

This was an idyllic finale held in the lovely orchard by the banks of the river Lima. No better location could have been chosen since these September days have given us a prolonged summer with really hot days. Sitting in the shade under the fruit trees was clearly the best choice!

As ever in Italy strict Covid-19 regulations were in place for this event. Everyone had to wear  ‘mascherine’ – surgical masks – and no-one was allowed to move their socially-distanced chairs. Italy, in this ghastly on-going situation has set an example for public events which, alas, is all too lacking in many other countries. I remain truly proud of and feel very safe in this country!

(The presentation by the Bersaglieri of the commemorative laurel wreath to Italian independence fighter Mario Caccia)

A Chopped-up Knight and Much Else

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Last Sunday’s concert in Borgo a Mozzano’s “il bello e il buono” series took place in the town of Diecimo which, as its name implies, is ten Roman miles north of Lucca. As an added bonus we were treated before the event to a guided tour of the town’s remarkable Romanesque pieve (parish church) by Silvia Valentini, an estate agent and local historian.

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Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the church was begun in the twelfth century by order of the Countess Matilde di Canossa (see my post on this remarkable mediaeval woman, who was also responsible for our area’s distinctive Devil’s bridge or Ponte della Maddalena, at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/borgo-a-mozzanos-matilde/) .

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(Our recent ‘piena’ on the Serchio)

The church, which consists of a nave, two aisles and a large semi-circular apse, is built of local dark-hued limestone blocks.

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Above its entrance door is a beautiful carved lintel which our guide suggested represents the parable of the Vineyard. (See Matthew, Chapter 20, verses 1 to 6).

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I particularly liked the little carvings on the apse cornice and a distinctive ‘ocular’ window. Be aware, too, that the lower of the two entrances of the campanile lead into the town gaol.

 

Next to the nave stands the imposing bell tower, with its characteristic succession of single, bifurcate, trifurcate and quadrifurcate windowed stages.

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The pieve’s stately interior has sculptures dating from the first half of the thirteenth century.

 

There’s a bas-relief depicting the prophet Isaiah, two column-bearing lions and a capital with eagles.

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The sad thing is that these sculptures are all that remain of a pulpit which was once on the same scale as that which can still be admired in Barga cathedral. The eighteenth century was not so appreciative and the pulpit, (or ambo as it’s technically known as), was crudely dismantled and largely dispersed.

I absolutely adore these lions: one is seen attacking the evil monster hydra:

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The other is fending off an attack from a heretic who is trying to stab its throat with a dagger.

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Clearly the lions are symbols of the Church Triumphant.

 

Other sculptures include a thirteenth-century hexagonal baptismal font demonstrating that once Roman Catholic baptism meant complete immersion – still practised by some Christian denominations to this day (e.g. the Baptists and the Church of Latter Day Saints).

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There’s an outstanding Roman sarcophagus adorned with lion masks:

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There’s also this strange slab depicting a knight almost hidden behind a large shield and locally known as King Pepin. Silvia theorised with regard to two odd features of this sculpture

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One, it’s not that the knight is a dwarf but that the horse merely carries, as was the wont of the times, the helmet of the dead knight in a funeral procession. It’s rather like the British army’s tradition of mounting a dead warrior’s boots upside down in the stirrups.

Two, the lower part of the slab was quickly finished off by an apprentice, hence its clumsy appearance.  Perhaps the knight had lost favour or his descendants failed to finish paying for the monument?

After this enjoyable and instructive visit we made our way towards the birth-house of Diecimo’s local hero, Saint Giovanni Leonardi, passing his recently-erected statue near the churchyard on the way.

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San Leonardi was the youngest of seven children born to artisan parents in Diecimo. Aged seventeen, he began a ten-year study to become a certified pharmacist’s assistant in Lucca. Later, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572.

Among Leonardi’s achievements was to gather a group of volunteers to work in hospitals and prisons. He was also an important contributor to the devotional movement known as the Counter-Reformation and took much interest in the Council of Trent reforms as a result of which he founded a congregation of secular priests, the Lucca fathers, which still exists to this day under the name ‘Congregation of the Mother of God”.

Indeed, our host at San Giovanni Leonardi’s house, padre Francesco Petrillo, is a member of this order which has in recent years returned to minister at its founder’s birthplace.

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He displayed to us the sweet presepi or Christmas cribs in the pieve’s sacristy which he makes himself and sells to boost church funds.

 

Padre Petrillo also showed us the precious collection of saintly reliquaries containing the bones of various martyrs.

 

There’s much more to say about San Giovanni Leonardi: his resilient personality and his friendship with Saint Philip Neri (without whom London would not have had its Brompton oratory), for example.

Leonardi was made a saint in 1938 by Pope Pius XI; his liturgical feast is celebrated on October the 9th and his relics lie in the church in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome. Diecimo, however, has the honour of his birthplace and housing a museum dedicated to him:

Not surprisingly, Saint Giovanni Leonardi is the patron saint of chemists given his long career in this occupation. (I wonder how many Boots assistants know that…)

The fourth concert of the musical season promoted by the Borgo a Mozzano’s Salotti music school was an absolute treat. ..I don’t think I’ve been so enveloped by guitarists: the room was small and I was triphonically surrounded by the players. No problem, the music was brilliantly performed (and with acoustic guitars there’s no problem of anything being too loud).

The Lydian Guitar Trio is formed by Nicola Fenzi, Dario Atzori and Giacomo Brunini (the artistic director of the festival) and the programme ranged from the classical period to the present day with music by Filippo Gragnani, Astor Piazzolla, Paul Hindemith, and contemporary composers Antonio Gabriele Martinique and Luca Guidi. It was particularly enjoyable to have living composers in the packed room introducing their music and they could have had no better set of musicians to perform their adventurous offerings.

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The encore was a repeat of one of four beautiful Basque tunes; it was truly an utterly memorable way to spend a somewhat intemperate evening.

If you are a Fornolian try not to miss next Sunday’s concert, on the first of December, which will take place at 5 pm in Fornoli’s parish church. It’ll be presented by our journalist in resident and master of ceremonies Marco Nicoli and is sure to be another delectable way to spend a late autumn afternoon.

 

 

 

 

If Music be the Food of Love…

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Many of my posts are about music, either to publicize concerts or to describe those I have attended. Music for me is clearly a great love whether it’s so-called ‘classical’  (a misnomer if there ever was one as ‘classical’ correctly refers to a style immediately preceding the advent of romanticism) or whether it be ‘pop’ or whether it be ‘world’ music.

My critical distinction in music is between good and bad or between music and muzak. I have a pet hate about entering into any public establishment where there is piped muzak, often at an exceedingly loud volume, and where one’s request to turn down the noise down goes unheeded. In such cases I just walk out and they lose my custom.

Love of music is both inherited and cultivated. My mother was originally destined for a career as a pianist.

Graduating with the likes of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli at Italy’s largest musical institution, the Milan conservatoire, founded in 1807 (another graduate was Giacomo Puccini) my mother did not fulfil her pianistic ambitions since the last war changed her course towards  nursing, medicine, social work and, eventually, psychoanalysis.

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During Maurizio Pollini’s UK concert tour of 1997 (where he played all of Beethoven’s sonatas) I was able to arrange a back-stage meeting between my mother and Pollini, another Milan conservatoire graduate.  It was interesting to hear the two discuss their student days; I was hoping that the subject of Michelangeli would crop up since Pollini had been one of his pupils and had been criticised for the increased coolness and restraint of his playing as a result of being influenced by someone my mother had described as a ‘cold fish.’ However, neither had anything negative to say about Michelangeli who I regard as one of the greatest of all keyboard players: his interpretation, for example, of the slow movement of Ravel’s G major piano concerto is utterly ravishing.

My mother’s career change, however, did not mean the end of her piano playing. Indeed, as a string player in the school orchestra I recollect playing with her an acceptable rendering of Mozart’s poignant E minor violin sonata. The black upright, with its sculpted laurel wreath on the front soundboard accompanied my mum from the time her father had purchased it at a knock-down price during a pre-war depression hit Italy to her migration to England and to Wales where a special room was built onto her cottage there. I do not know, however, where that piano is now.

My mother’s musical tastes were very clearly defined and firmly based in the nineteenth century with a few exceptions. The composers that spoke most directly  to her were Chopin and Brahms.

Chopin provided her with the deepest searchings of the heart: she particularly loved the preludes but the ballades, too, much affected her: in fact I still have the old shellac 78’s Alfred Cortot recordings. (A pianist, incidentally, she much admired and about which she stated ‘his unique interpretative powers makes one completely forget his several fluffs).

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Brahms, instead, released the rebellious side of my mum’s character. She took me, with her friend Doctor Montuschi (in whose memory the Montuschi ward at London’s Whittington Hospital – where my dad spent his last night – is dedicated) to the Royal Festival Hall to hear the two Brahms piano concerti played by that great Chilean Claudio Arrau and the gipsy-like finale of the Violin Concerto was her particular favourite.

One of the highlights of my teen visits to the concert hall was in June 1974 when my mum’s ‘wunderkind’ hero, Herbert Von Karajan, came to London to conduct  Brahms’ symphonies in two concerts.

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My mum’s concentration on the 19th century was clearly characteristic of her generation but she mentioned with pride that one of her graduation pieces was Bela Bartok’s uncompromising ‘Allegro Barbaro’ and she was a great fan of Stravinsky.

Did my mum have any pet musical hates? There were some genres she was less than happy to listen to. She remembered the tedium of having to sit through Ponchielli’s opera ‘La Gioconda’, for example. Oddly (for me) my mum was no great enthusiast for British classical music (no Elgarian…) although she admired the high standards of English light music as exemplified by Eric Coates. Mendelssohn she did not regard very highly either. However, my mum was open to much she heard on the wireless and suffered me to introduce her to the more abstruse stuff.

If my mum had been on the radio programme  ‘Desert island discs’ I feel certain that the following would be her favourite eight records:

J. S. Bach: D minor organ Toccata and Fugue.

Brahms: Violin Concerto, (Bruch’s concerto would have run a close second).

Chopin: Ballades.

Stravinsky: Petrushka.

Mussorgsky: (orch. Ravel). ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’.

Puccini. ‘Un bel di’ (Madama Butterfly)’.

Verdi. Dies Irae. Requiem.

Any Italian mountain song sung by the Coro Alpino.

 

…which reminds me .. The next concert in the enterprising series managed by artistic director and guitarist Giacomo Brunini  and promoted by the Salotti Civic Music School of Borgo a Mozzano will be held this Sunday November 24th at 5.15 pm at the San Giovanni Leonardi Library in Diecimo.

The performer will be the Lydian Guitar Trio – Nicola Fenzi, Dario Atzori and Giacomo Brunini – who will perform music by Filippo Gragnani, Astor Piazzolla, Paul Hindemith, and contemporary composers Antonio Gabriele Martinique and Luca Guidi.

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Before the concert, at 4.15 pm, it will be possible to take part in a guided tour starting from the Pieve di Diecimo to the birthplace of San Giovanni Leonardi, the venue for the concert.

Thanks to the San Giovanni Leonardi Association, the Leonardini Fathers and the staff of “Borgo è bellezza” for their cooperation in organizing the events.

All concerts are free admission with free-will offering.

To receive more information about the concert and the guided tour, please contact the following:

borgoamozzanomusica@gmail.com – Cell. 3498496612

Or visit the website at

http://www.scuolacivicasalotti.it

 

 

 

 

La Chiesa più Antica di Londra

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La più antica chiesa di tutta Londra è la Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, talvolta abbreviata come ‘Great St Bart’s,’ e situata a Smithfield nel nord della City. La chiesa fu fondata come priorato agostiniano nel 1123 ed è adiacente all’ospedale St Bartholomew della stessa fondazione.

Ma come fu fondata? Rahere, un prebendario della Cattedrale di San Paolo e canonico agostiniano regolare, mentre era in Italia e ricoverando da una febbre presa nelle paludi dell’agro Pontino, ha sognato che una bestia alata venisse e lo trasportasse nel distretto di Londra di Smithfield dove avrebbe eretto una chiesa per ringraziamento. Rahere si recò a Londra e, dopo aver spiegato il suo messaggio divino al re Enrico I, gli fu concesso il titolo del terreno.

Questa zona di Londra serba dei ricordi particolari per me e mia moglie. Il mercato della carne a Smithfield, che tra poco sarà traslocato in una zona più ampia, fu dove ebbi il mio primo lavoro quando mi spostai a Londra all’epoca del matrimonio. Dovetti svegliarmi alle tre del mattino per arrivarci col servizio d’autobus notturno, e certo non fu un lavoro facile. Lavorai per una ditta ebrea che, paradossalmente, vendeva carne suina, ma, per fortuna, il lavoro non durò troppo a lungo poiché poco dopo trovai una posizione con l’organizzazione turistica della città di Londra.

Un’altra memoria meno felice fu quando il babbo di Sandra dovette essere ricoverato nell’ospedale di Saint Barts, una parte dello stesso complesso fondato dal monaco Rahere più di mille anni fa. Purtroppo, benché le cure dell’ospedale fossero premurose, l’esito non ebbe molto successo e il babbo dovette passare altri tredici anni in condizioni logoranti prima che trovò la sua pace eterna.

Benché la chiesa grande di Saint Barts sia stata molto danneggiata e perse metà della sua mole nel periodo della riforma, fu ripristinata nell’era vittoriana e ora presenta, con i suoi magnifici archi normanni, un insieme veramente affascinante e di altissimo pregio architettonico.

Anche qui abbiamo assistito a un concerto bellissimo: duo trio per archi di Haydn e di Schumann, suonati con estro commovente da tre ragazze polacche.

Dopo il concerto ci siamo avviati verso l’ospedale di San Bartolomeo. Qui abbiamo visitato il museo con la sua paurosa raccolta di strumenti medici di un’altra epoca. Pensa ad avere la propria gamba amputata senza anastesia!

Accanto c’è una scalinata monumentale decorata con grandi dipinti rappresentanti le storie del buon samaritano e la fontana di Bethesda dal noto pittore settecentesco, William Hogarth.

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Anche qui serbo una memoria poiché quando mi sono laureato – per la seconda volta – al City University in scienze informatiche venni qui per un ricevimento durante il qualche scoppio una paurosa tempesta con lampi e tuoni fortissimi.

Accanto al museo c’è un’altra chiesa dedicata a San Bartolomeo, questa volta più piccola e costruita più recentemente. Con la sua forma ottagonale è veramente carina.

A questo punto nel nostro pellegrinaggio avevamo fame e ci siamo avviati a uno dei vicini ristoranti che il celebre salernitano, Antonio Carluccio ha reso famoso, per gustare una bella zuppa di funghi e una spaghettata alla puttanesca.

 

Chiese e ospedali;

luoghi della memoria:

il tempo fugge.

 

 

 

Beautiful Places Bathed in Music

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It’s ten years since the Brunini-Atzori guitar duo inaugurated their first season of recitals in Borgo a Mozzano.

Entitled ‘Incontri musicali : I Luoghi del bello e della cultura’ ( “Musical Encounters – places of beauty and culture”) the recital series was started in 2010 by ​​guitarist Giacomo Brunini with the idea of bringing the public, especially young people, closer to the world of music through concerts, meetings, presentation of recordings and masterclasses on various genres and musical styles from early to contemporary music.

Every year the music events are held in various locations in the Municipality of Borgo a Mozzano and are aimed at rediscovering significant places of striking beauty and artistic importance.

Indeed, the marriage of good music making and little-known but beautiful sites is quite irresistible.

Here is a list of the artists playing in the concert programme for this autumn:

ArmoniEnsemble Guitar Trio
Masini-Costantino guitar duo
Eliseo Sandretti, organ and spinet
Francesco Tomei, viola da gamba
Atzori-Brunini guitar duo
Lydian Guitar Trio
Etymos Ensemble

There will also be a special appearance by Marco Lugliani, the lutenist.

To date I still have to get the precise dates of the concerts from Brunini but as soon as I get them I will put them on my blog page. So watch this space closely!

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A Commemoration of a Great Lady

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In 2012 Bagni Di Lucca held a poetry competition on the subject, (appropriately for a spa town) of healing waters. The organiser was Carla Guidi and the president of the judging panel was Valeria Catelli. I sent in two entries and found that each poem had been given a prize. Valeria’s reasons for the awards was very sensitively analysed. As is often the case, the critic reveals unsuspected details in a creator’s work.

For over ten years I have contributed, as part of the teaching staff, to the Bagni Di Lucca branch of the University of the Third Age. When Fabio Lucchesi retired as the branch’s director Valeria Catelli succeeded to the post.

Quite unexpectedly Valeria sadly died last year. In her memory a newly restored gravestone in Bagni Di Lucca’s historic protestant cemetery was dedicated to Valeria last Sunday.

The ‘cimitero inglese ‘ was looking at its best in the late summer sunshine.

The ceremony was followed by a quartet and vocal recital in the town’s library, the former Anglican church.

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This was the programme:

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The quartet played with passionate elan. I was particularly taken by the Boccherini piece which was intensely dark-hued.

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The afternoon was, I felt, a fitting tribute to an exceptionally fine teacher, a great contributor to our town’s cultural milieu and a lady I have been very privileged to work with.

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Elici’s Musical Magic

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The picturesque pieve (parish church) at Elici spreads its Romanesque architecture on a truly romantic spot.

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We reached it when it was enveloped in the soft pink of a fading sunset and admired the extensive views sweeping down from the Apuans to the coastal plain of Versilia which here are splashed by the waters of Massaciuccoli lake.

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We were early for the last chamber music concert of the summer season but a queue had already formed outside the main portal. On a previous occasion, when we heard a ravishing Messiaen quartet for the end of time, the venue was in the courtyard of the church. This evening, however, due to weather uncertainties, we were seated inside the building where the temperature approached the sauna levels I had only recently experienced in London’s central line tube trains.

This was the concert programme:

SERGEJ KRYLOV violino
EDOARDO MARIA STRABBIOLI pianoforte

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Sonata n. 26 per violino e pianoforte in si bemolle maggiore (Bb major) K.378
Allegro moderato
Andantino sostenuto e cantabile
Rondò. Allegro

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Sonata per pianoforte e violino n. 1 op. 78 in sol maggiore (G major)
Vivace ma non troppo
Adagio
Allegro molto moderato
* * *
César Franck (1822-1890)
Sonata in la maggiore (A major) per violino e pianofort
Allegretto ben moderato
Allegro
Recitativo-Fantasia: Ben moderato. Largamente con fantasia
Allegretto poco mosso

Krylov is a muscular player with an extraordinary technique and very much in the Russian tradition. He was a friend of Rostropovitch, has spent much time in Italy and is chief conductor of the Lithuanian Symphony orchestra. Strabbioli, too, is a formidable performer and I felt the two matched each other perfectly.

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It would be churlish to criticise such a high quality recital. I felt, however, that the balance in the Mozart unduly favoured the Steinway piano. The Brahms, composed by the shores of an idyllic Carinthian lake and overflowing with melodies distilled in the purest honey, was rather more balanced.

For me, however, the Franck, suffused with composer’s late life passion for the Irish -French Augusta Holmes (herself a fine composer and the mother of these charming children painted by Renoir) took the laurel. Krylov and Strabbioli fully revealed the cyclic structure, immense flow and virtuoso writing (especially for the piano) of this, one of the repertoire’s greatest violin sonatas.

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The performers let rip in the two encores: Falla’s fire dance from ‘la vida breve’ and one of Bartok’s Rumanian dances. Indeed, the whole evening was so riveting that I entirely forgot the high temperature and the hard church pew.

 

Special thanks are due to my friends who invited me to come with them to Pieve a Elici.

Incidentally, the web site, ‘luccamusica’, displaying concert events in the lucchesia and for which I have edited the English language section, has, this year, been purchased by Andrea Colombini, famed for his Puccini concerts in the city’s baptistery. It is now fully operational and, together with the AML (Lucca Musical Association) site, is quite informative about music events around here. However, it is always essential to Google round and about as neither guarantees a comprehensive listing.

 

Il Comune di Winston Churchill

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Qualche settimana fa mi sono trovato in un comune di Londra, il quale rappresentante parlamentare una volta era Winston Churchill. Infatti, nel comune c’è questa statua che commemora il grande statista e storico che salvò il Regno Unito dal barbarismo nazista e che era fiducioso in una nuova Europa.

Chingford si trova nel nord di Londra vicino alla grande foresta di Epping, una volta una riserva di caccia ai cervi per i re e le regine. Infatti, qui si trova la cosiddetta ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge’ che risale al 1543 e fu usata dai reali come tribuna per osservare la caccia.

Questo grazioso edificio a graticcio è ora adibito per i matrimoni e per le mostre.

La chiesa parrocchiale, in stile gotico, di Chingford si trova in mezzo a un ampio  ‘village common’  (campo del comune).

La chiesa fu cominciata nel 1844 dall’architetto Lewis Vulliamy (che scrisse un bel libro sul ponte di San Trinita, Firenze) ed è quella parte che si vede per primo quando si entra e che consiste di un’unica navata. La chiesa fu ampliata nel 1903 dal grande architetto, Sir Arthur Blomfield che diede all’aggiunta, la forma di tre navate.

A me è piaciuto molto il soffitto di questa chiesa che è dedicata a San Pietro e Paolo. Carine anche le vetrate illuminate.

Da visitare anche la chiesa di Tutti i Santi a Chingford Mount (conosciuta localmente come la vecchia chiesa) che risale al dodicesimo secolo.

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Mi sono avviato a Chingford principalmente per ascoltare un concerto sul magnifico organo.

Mi è sembrata , però, una parte di Londra abbastanza interessante e amena e certo ritornerò per passeggiare nella foresta di Epping. Quali parti di Londra, insomma, non hanno cose d’interesse a vedere ed esplorare?

Città villaggio:

una campagna urbana

si stende attorno.

 

 

 

 

An Evening of Joy and Beauty in Lucca Cathedral

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Take one of the finest youth choirs in the UK, place them in one of Tuscany’s most glorious cathedrals, Lucca’s San Martino, and hear them singing a wide repertoire ranging from renaissance through baroque to Britten and one has all the ingredients for a lovely evening of music, full of joy and beauty.

 

Taplow Choirs was founded in 2004 by Gillian Dibden and Philip Viveash as a centre for local singers and to bring together children and adults wishing to build their singing skills. They have become a centre of singing excellence in the area.

There are four Taplow choirs: children’s choir, boys’ choir, girls’ choir and the youth choir.

The Taplow youth choir, formed in 2006, currently has seventy five members, aged between 15 and 18. It was awarded BBC Radio 3’s “Youth Choir of the Year” in 2008 and won the prestigious ‘Music for Youth’ award in the same year. The choir participated in the International Choral Competition in Tallinn, Estonia, in April 2009, and won 2nd prize in the Youth category. Regular visitors to the Windsor Festival, the choir also sings Evensong in St. George’s chapel, Windsor castle every year. It participates in the young singers program with the Gabrieli Consort, and has performed Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ with the Consort at the Royal Albert Hall.

The choir’s Music Director, Gillian Dibden, has a long career in music, especially working with young people. In 2009 she received the MBE for her work with young people and children’s choirs. We were able to meet Gillian after the concert and she felt that this year’s choir intake was one of the best she’d had. We fully concurred.

Every other year the Taplow youth choir goes on a European tour and this year it was Italy’s turn to be feasted by their singing. Florence and Siena  follow on from Lucca where the concert in the Cathedral formed part of the “Music in the Cathedral” series of events.

Here, in Lucca cathedral, is a snippet of the choir singing that sweet Henry Purcell anthem ‘Rejoice in the Lord Alway’. The cathedral’s accoustics lent themselves particularly well to this anthem.

And this piece, ‘Ave Virgo Sanctissima’ by the Spanish Guerrrero, shows how well the choir  performs renaissance polyphony:

This section from Faure’s consoling requiem was most affectingly sung:

It’s rare enough to hear one of my favourite composers, Gerald Finzi, in the UK; to hear him in Italy is really special. “Come Away, Come Away, Death” (the words are from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night) is the first item in Finzi’s song cycle ‘Let Us Garlands Bring’ composed in 1942 for Vaughan-Williams’ 70th birthday. The highly bizarre note intervals are a real challenge to any singer but the soloist did pretty well, I feel.

The Allegri ‘Miserere’  is the piece that fourteen year old Mozart heard during Holy Week and wrote down entirely from memory. It was beautifully performed with the famous stratospheric sections sung from the cathedral pulpit by a select group from the choir.

Here are the concluding items in the wide-ranging repertoire the Taplow Youth Choir sings

It’s somewhat unfortunate that the audience was rather less than the forty members of the choir, despite very widespread publicity. There were clearly more British in the audience than Italians, although Elio Antichi, director of one of Lucca’s most notable choirs ‘il baluardo’, was present and was astounded by the quality of sound from such young singers. Perhaps Monday night is not a very good weekday for a concert in Italy.

However, I am quite sure that Florence has received this lovely choir with much greater presence. Youth choirs from the UK have truly much to teach their Italian youth counterparts.

(For other concerts in the “Music in the Cathedral” series of events see http://www.musicaincattedralelucca.com/).

PS In the UK I studied the Javanese court gamelan orchestra with distinguished teacher Nikhil Dally. I learnt about the concert through him; his daughter is an alto in the Taplow choir on its Italian tour.

 

What’s on this Week-end at Bagni di Lucca

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Despite the fact that Lent has now officially started and that, traditionally, we’re supposed to give up something, there’s no excuse for missing out on some very worthwhile events at Bagni di Lucca:

This Friday at 6 pm you are invited for a free aperitif and olive oil tasting at the Hotel delle Terme (that’s the one next to the thermal baths).

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One could then have a pizza in town before moving to the Casino for the free inaugural concert starring singers, Eleonora Tirrito and Valentina Bartoli, celebrating the start of women’s week.

On Saturday the art exhibition opens at 10 am.

At 5.30 pm in Bagni di Lucca’s Library (ex Anglican church) there will be a seminar entitled ‘Homage to Paolina Borghese Bonaparte’. It will include a documentary film Napoleon’s sister.

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Incidentally, did anyone listen to that amazing concert on Radio 3 last night in which Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque played the following pieces by renaissance and classical women composers which I doubt most men know anything about?

Francesca Caccini: Selections from Il primo libro delle musiche: ‘Romanesca’ No 4 Madrigal ‘Maria, dolce Maria’; No 34 Canzonatta ‘Fresche aurette’;No 28 Canzonatta ‘Non sò se quel sorriso’

Isabella Leonarda: Sonata duodecima, Op 16

Francesca Caccini: Ciaccona from Il primo libro delle musiche, ‘O chiome belle’ from Il primo libro delle musiche

Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre: Violin Sonata No 2 in D Les Sommeil d’Ulisse from Cantates françoises, No. 3

(You can hear pieces from the concert for a few more days at

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002zg9)

The fact is that only in recent years have ‘hidden’ women composers and artists come out of the cupboards power-freaked men have placed them in for too long.

Some women still ask why there’s an international woman’s day anyway and why there isn’t an equivalent men’s day. The problem is that for too long women and men have been treated un-equivalently. ‘Mendelssohn’, for example, brings to mind Felix and not his brilliant composer sister, Fanny from which he borrowed several of his themes and even passed off quite a few of her works as his own! To say nothing of ‘Schumann’ when Robert springs to attention and Clara, his wife, with her equally fine compositions is neglected. Indeed, Clara was brainwashed by the conventions of the time to give up composition when she married Robert and devote instead to caring for and nurturing her husband’s obviously ‘superior’ talent.

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(Recognize some of the hidden women composers of the past?)

Fortunately, such absurd views are now ever more being dispelled in the modern world. Well, in many places. I read today that Google is refusing to remove a Saudi government app that lets men track and control women. Through this imprisoning technology men are given power to grant and withdraw travel permission and set up SMS alerts when passports are being used by (their…) women.

Just for that situation there’s reason enough to continue to celebrate an international women’s day.