Some events are unmissable but, unfortunately, they still can be missed. Fortunately Lia of the Borgo a Mozzano School of music let me know just in time of a not very well publicised concert.
On the 15th of September, in the beautiful parish church of San Jacopo al Borgo, a concert with three young Lucchesi (and Australians) who now illuminate the international musical world from Germany to the United States to Ireland to Korea took place.
Do you perhaps remember their operatic debuts at the Teatro dei Rassicurati in Montecarlo in 2013 when the Mozart Da Ponte operas were performed in extremely original productions?
It was really a pleasure to hear and meet them after all these years, particularly in the sonoral environment of the magnificent Ravani organ of 1631, with music by Guami, Handel, Mozart, Merula, Zipoli, Bohm, Tomeoni, Puccini and Monteverdi.
Indeed, it was Brandani’s enthusiasm to play the recently restored ravishing Ravani which prompted the concert.
Mattia told me after the concert that he had an idea to return to the Rassicurati with at least one further production for, as he said (and we the audience utterly agreed) it was absolute fun to perform there.
Sometimes it’s important not just to trawl the web or discover some poster in a bar to find out about special musical events in our area. It does help to have musical friends. Thanks Lia!
(From left to right, Mattia Campetti (baritone), Don Francesco Maccari, Michelle Buscemi (soprano), Jonathan Brandani (organist))
(PS Future concerts are planned at San Jacopo now that the Ravani organ has been restored, I’ll see if and when I can get further information about them.)
How on earth do they do it in Italy? Get together a cracking professional choir with four supreme soloists, hire two grands and a harmonium, have a truly on-the-ball conductor, find an idyllic setting in a Franciscan monastery, and play Gioachino Rossini’s eloquent, eclectic masterpiece, his ‘Petite Messe Solennelle’, on the occasion of the Pesaro composer’s 150th death anniversary. Then, after a superlative musical banquet, provide another foody one in the Arcadian grounds of the monastery gardens with pasta, a multitude of finger dishes and a mouth-melting selection of sweets. And all for a voluntary donation to the local Misericordia or emergency and ambulance service…
This wouldn’t happen in London except if one pays for three-digit priced tickets (and then the drinks would be extra, unlike the free-flowing prosecco of Sunday evening).
The simple fact is that in Italy it’s often too much of a bureaucratic bother to set up ticket sales, what with all the government taxes and so forth. Furthermore, Italians are generous towards such organisations as the Misericordia and, of course, the Banks of Lucca are not mean-minded machines like they are in Europe’s former (after March 29th next year, that is) financial capital, but are true Maecenases of the arts.
Rossini packed everything into this greatest of his ‘sins of my old age’ as he termed his post-theatre productions. Gioachino had given up opera over thirty years previously, realising full well that his style was going out of favour (he’d anyway earned his dosh out of writing such masterpieces as the ‘Barber of Seville’ and ‘William Tell’).
It’s a ‘Petite’, (lasting well over an hour…), ‘Messe’ (perhaps that’s right as it’s a hotchpotch with everything from the strictest double fugue counterpoint in the ‘Quoniam’ and the ‘Vitam Venturi’ to heroic arias worthy of the finest operatic stage) ‘Solennelle’ (strictly speaking a Mass is solemn but there are plenty of witticisms in Rossini’s version which can bring a smile to the most dour-faced listener.
The gorgeous evening was also the concluding event in the greatest music festival this side of Lucca. Maestro Roni’s inspiration for the ‘Serchio delle Muse’ (translation unnecessary) was to bring music to the smallest village, to the highest mountain side to the most distant valley. This year was as varied as ever with a concert on the heights of the majestic Pania della Croce mountain, with three wonderful operettas (yes Italy has a great operettic tradition equal to anything that G n S, Offenbach and Lehar can conjure up) and lots more.
If you know nothing of the Serchio delle Muse festival then inscribe it in your brain ASAP. It’s the best thing going around here and more than makes up for the sad demise (temporary, I hope) of Barga Opera.
I should add that the evening was also a nice social event and I met up with truly valuable friends, some of whom had come from Pisa just on my Facebook announcements.
Don’t miss out for next year and the great maestro Roni’s festival if you’re in our lovely part of the world.
This year, thanks to an exceptionally dry spell, la Vendemmia, or grape-picking for wine-making, has been going swimmingly well. It’s an occasion for bringing friends and family together and returning to one’s rural roots.
Fortunately, many Italians have kept ancestral homes and lands in the country as Italy, unlike the UK, with its nineteenth century industrial revolution, has only become a predominantly urban centred society since the last war. In 1945 over half the population was engaged as agricultural workers. Now it’s just over 5%.
I joined in a vendemmia last week-end in the beautiful hills of the Compitese between Lucca and Pisa. Since they are rather gentler than the slopes we have around here it meant that the vineyards were much easier to work.
The grapes were transported to a press which cleverly separated the grapes from their stems and leaves and formed a must which was poured into a fermenting vat.
Here it will stay for some weeks and be stirred daily to encourage the fermentation process.
We had a beautifully extended lunch break with some excellent samples from that other harvest’, the spaghetti one (!)
The end product is, of course, Bacchus’ gift to mankind.
As the final lines of Handel’s ‘Bawdy’ (to use the eighteenth century’s description) oratorio ‘Semele’ puts it neatly:
From Semele’s ashes a phoenix shall rise, The joy of this earth, and delight of the skies: A God he shall prove More mighty than Love, And sighing and sorrow for ever prevent.
Happy, happy shall we be, Free from care, from sorrow free. Guiltless pleasures we’ll enjoy, Virtuous love will never cloy; All that’s good and just we’ll prove, And Bacchus crown the joys of love.
It was as an eight-year old that I discovered the obvious difference between Italy and the United Kingdom. One was a wine country and the other wasn’t (although it’s fair to say it’s making rapid progress to catch up in that direction, thanks to climate change and cultural tastes).
Non potrei superare quella mia descrizione di una chiesina che ha servito come modello per la caratteristica chiesa rurale degli Stati Uniti.
Mi mancava, però, di sentirne l’organo, costruito da William Drake di Buckfastleigh, Devon, nel 1991 e utilizzando la cassa storica fatta da Abraham Jordan nel 1732.
La chiesina, chiamata Grosvenor Chapel, fa parte della parrocchia di Saint George Hanover Square (la parrocchia di Haendel), ed è famosa per l’alta qualità della sua musica; ogni martedì, all’ora di pranzo, si tengono concerti l’organo. Esistono già due CD del coro della cappella.
L’organista il martedì 14 agosto era Alex Flood della cattedrale di Saint Albans.
Questo era il suo programma:
L’organo è idoneo per questo tipo di musica, avendo le seguenti caratteristiche:
La ciaccona di Buxtehude, genitore artistico di Bach, è ben nota. Meno nota è la storia di Davide e Golia di Kuhnau raccontata con musica molto descrittiva. Di Strodgers si conosce pressoché niente ma la sua fantasia era molto ben elaborata
Per me la trascrizione per organo, di Flood, della suprema ciaccona che termina la partita in re minore per violino solo di Bach era il clou del concerto.
La trascrizione, fedele allo spirito dell’originale, senza retorica romantica, ha concluso un ora di pranzo con supremo gusto e ci ha nutriti col pane spirituale che la buona musica ci può sempre donare.
Il plagio, cioè l’appropriazione da un ‘ladro artistico’ di materiale creativo che è proprietà per diritto di un altro autore, è particolarmente diffuso nella musica. Infatti, costituisce sovente una situazione essenziale nella creatività del compositore. Dall’età medioevale al barocco, all’era classica e, specialmente nella musica contemporanea, grandi musicisti come Palestrina, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, e Berio hanno tutti plagiato.
Dobbiamo distinguere, però, tra le varie categorie di plagio. Prima, c’è il plagio ‘legale’, meglio descritto come ‘prestito creativo’, ammesso per tradizione e forma musicale come, tipicamente, nelle variazioni su un tema di un altro compositore: per esempio, le variazioni di Brahms su un tema di Haydn, oppure le ‘partite’ su un motivo entrato nella tradizione, come ‘La Follia’, impiegata da una moltitudine di musicisti incluso il nostro Lucchese Geminiani, e perfino da Rachmaninov (che, però, lo attribuì ad Arcangelo Corelli).
Un altro prestito creativo è quando un compositore adatta dalle proprie composizioni, forse per ragioni di mancanza di tempo o forse perché un suo brano può essere estratto e usato in una nuova composizione. Bach e Haendel sono tra i più noti ‘auto-imprestatori creativi’. Per esempio, Bach utilizza il primo tempo del suo terzo concerto Brandenburghese per la sinfonia che inizia la cantata di Pentecoste Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (BWV 174), con l’aggiunta, però, di due oboi, un oboe alto (detto ‘taille’), corna e un fagotto congiunto al continuo.
In questo rispetto Giacomo Puccini usufruì di certe sue composizioni nelle sue grandi opere liriche. Per esempio, alcuni temi del quartetto ‘I Crisantemi’ ritornano nell’ultimo atto della ‘Manon Lescaut’; la parte centrale del brano che completò gli studi Milanesi, il ‘Capriccio sinfonico’ del 1883, è usata all’inizio della ‘Bohème’, composta tredici anni più tardi.
Potrei citare parecchi altri esempi. Per esempio, la ‘Salve Regina’ viene riutilizzata nella ‘preghiera’ de ‘Le Ville’ e la ninna-nanna ‘Sogno d’or’ diventa un tema principale de ‘La Rondine’. Anche il ‘Benedictus’ della giovanile ‘Messa a quattro voci’ dona una frase per il minuetto nel secondo atto della ‘Manon Lescaut’.
Il vero plagio è quello ‘illegale’, cioè furto senza alcun riconoscimento. L’esempio più clamoroso è quello del Requiem di Mozart, commissionato dal conte Walsegg per la morte della moglie, ma che il conte volle far passare per una sua creazione!
Anche Puccini ‘rubò’ (e non parlo della leggenda delle canne d’organo per soddisfare il suo vizio da giovane fumatore…) ma qui si devono considerare plagi permessi per contribuire all’ambiente operistico; per esempio i temi giapponesi nella ‘Madama Butterfly’, quelli americani nella ‘Fanciulla’ e la conosciutissima melodia cinese ‘Mo-Li-Hua’ che appare in varie forme (con altre otto melodie cinesi) nell’ultima opera del maestro, ‘Turandot’. Un plagio difficilmente accettabile però, poiché è anche un furto che diminuisce l’impatto della musica, occorre nella ‘Tosca’ quando il terzetto ‘l’alba vindice appar’ è stato trafugato dal fratello Michele, morto a Rio de Janeiro di febbre gialla nove anni prima.
I casi più difficili del plagio sono quelli in bilico tra la legalità e l’illegalità. Per esempio, ha veramente rubato una melodia, il compositore oppure è semplicemente un caso di criptomnesia? Questo sindrome mentale accade quando una memoria dimenticata torna senza essere riconosciuta come tale dal soggetto, che crede che sia qualcosa di nuovo e originale.
La criptomnesia ha colpito in maniera particolarmente tragica Robert Schumann, che, nelle sue ultime variazioni, usò un tema che pensò fosse donato da un angelo ma che, invece, l’aveva composto lui. Poco dopo è stato messo in una struttura vicino a Bonn che ho visitato (come visitatore, e non come paziente, vorrei aggiungere!) Gli ammiratori di questo grande compositore potrebbero dire che, metaforicamente, il concetto è vero poiché così tanta della musica di Schumann è angelica.
La criptomnesia è anche un’inconsapevolezza che un tema usato da un compositore è molto simile a un tema di un altro compositore. Insomma, non esiste un numero infinito di note musicali e, sebben le loro combinazioni possano essere quasi infinite, certe coincidenze devono, per forza, capitare. Per capovolgere la battuta di un comico inglese che fece una bischerata del concerto per pianoforte di Grieg: ‘ho suonato tutte le note giuste ma non necessariamente nello stesso ordine.’ Noi tutti abbiamo sentito una melodia che ci ha fatto ricordare di un’altra, specialmente nel mondo della musica leggera. Per dare un esempio, ‘My sweet Lord’ di George Harrison è molto simile alla canzone ‘He’s so fine’ dei Chiffons.
Un caso che, per me, forse oltrepassa la criptomnesia è la canzone ‘Ballata dell’amore perduto’ di Fabrizio de André che plagia due terzi delle sue frasi dall’adagio del concerto in Re maggiore per tromba, archi e continuo di Georg Philipp Telemann. Quando scrisse questa canzone De André doveva conoscere il concerto ma ‘imprestò’ Telemann in un’epoca quando la musica barocca non era così conosciuta come oggi. Beh, almeno sono belle le parole e commovente la sua voce. Una coincidenza che mi attira a questa conoscenza è che il brano di Telemann è suonato da un altro André, il grande trombettista Maurice André, in un’incisione della stessa epoca, anni sessanta.
Il plagio della musica classica per comporre canzoni leggere è endemico. Basta fare un confronto fra la canzone ‘A Groovy Kind of Love” e il rondò della Sonatina in sol op. 36 no. 5 di Muzio Clementi.
Per non parlare poi di ‘Kismet’ e Borodin!
In questo secolo c’è stato un caso assolutamente scandaloso coinvolgendo due compositori lirici che hanno avuto enorme successo: Puccini con le sue opere e Andrew Lloyd-Webber con i suoi musical. In particolare, a causa delle somiglianze tra la canzone ‘Music of the Night’ del musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, di Lloyd-Webber e una melodia ‘quello che tacete’, ricorrente nell’opera ‘La Fanciulla del West’ di Giacomo Puccini. Gli eredi di Puccini, in particolare la nipote Simonetta Puccini, tristemente scomparsa il dicembre scorso, avevano intentato una causa contro Webber, accusandolo di plagio. Un accordo è poi stato risolto in via stragiudiziale e i dettagli non sono mai stati resi noti al pubblico. Data l’immensa ricchezza di Andrew Lloyd-Webber, penso che non sia stata una somma trascurabile e che abbia aiutato a restaurare la villa di Massaciuccoli del sommo maestro Lucchese.
Infine, dovrei menzionare Luciano Berio che è forse il plagiario più creativo della musica contemporanea. Il suo capolavoro, la Sinfonia del 1969, contiene brani di Mahler, Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, Berg, Brahms, Boulez, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Berlioz, Richard Strauss, J. S. Bach, Stockhausen, e Webern, ricreati, ovviamente in una vasta tessitura sonora caleidoscopica. Ritornando a Puccini, ricordiamo l’originalissimo completamento di Berio della ‘Turandot’, così diverso dalla consueta andatura trionfale Alfanica nella versione che solitamente si ascolta.
The Villa Bonvisi in the old part of Bagni di Lucca is a grand building, and is also known as the Villa Webb, since it was sold to the rich Scottish banker, one of whose guests was Lord Byron. Other visitors included James III, otherwise known as the ‘Old Pretender’, whose son was Bonnie Prince Charles.
Last Wednesday we too became guests of this noble mansion which has seen so much history. Indeed, more history was made by the solo harpsichord debut of Tommaso Nicoli, barely out of his teens, now perfecting his studies at La Spezia conservatoire and by all accounts, well on the way to becoming one of the most promising of Italy’s new generation of period-music and baroque keyboard players.
Like several historical instances Tommaso comes from a family with a musical background and, like those instances, he has become one of the most talented of them. If his father was a ‘Leopold’ then, clearly he is a ‘Wolfgang’. I was glad to note that Eliseo Sandretti, one of his earlier teachers was there. Eliseo, too, has a musical background, his father having been organist at Valdottavo. Eliseo was performer at the inauguration of the newly-restored Ravani organ at Borgo a Mozzano on which I have written a post at
The expansive hall of Villa Bonvisi was very well-filled. Last year young Nicoli collaborated in a duet concert so this year was truly his solo ‘esordio’ in Bagni di Lucca.
This was the programme:
The preponderance of French baroque music clearly shows the performer’s love of this music. Having been acquainted with Tommaso Nicoli since he was a tear-away kid of seven I was glad that the recordings I made for him of Forqueray, Rameau et al. had clearly remained with him.
Nicoli already has an idiomatic feel for the French 18th century use of ‘notes inegales’ (i.e. the performance practice, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short, or sometimes conversely giving a Scottish ‘snap’.)
Nicoli’s use of ornamentation was also quite prodigious, especially since this is the only way a note can be sustained for any length of time on the plucked instrument.
The Bach prelude and fugue from book one of the well-tempered clavier started, surprisingly for me, with the dampened timbre of lute-stopped strings which then were released in the final fast flourish. (I would, honestly, have preferred to keep the same resonance throughout the whole piece.)
Pacing and timing were very well-though out on the whole, though I am used to some pieces played at a slower tempo.
I was particularly pleased with the Domenico Scarlatti sonata which stands a not unfair comparison with Gilbert Rowland’s rendering. (See my post on that concert at
I think, however, that repeats should have been included. The cross-handing was pretty good..
I and my guest (who knows a thing or two about music) were rather pleased with the harpsichord’s timbre, (tuned to baroque temperament so you may have to get used to some of the note intervals) which was mellower without the clanginess that some instruments suffer from.
Tommaso Nicoli presented himself very well. He gave a concise and clear introduction of the concert pieces to an audience who was largely not well-acquainted with baroque keyboard music; his Indian muslin white attire was elegant and well-suited to our muggy summer evenings.
The whole concert was professionally recorded but I took the chance to capture a few snippets myself.
Let my snippets of Tommaso Nicoli’s performance speak for themselves. I think you may be well astounded….
Don’t you agree that the march of the Scythians is definately Tommaso Nicoli’s pièce de resistance?
The ‘concerto’ (which in Italian also means ’concert’) came fully into its own in the eighteenth century with the likes of Vivaldi and the Lucchese Geminiani. Concerti were written from the piccolo to the newly invented clarinet and from the bassoon to the viola d’amore and many featured instrumental combinations. However, the harpsichord and the double-bass were neglected as concerto soloists and were classified as accompanying or ‘continuo’ instruments.
It wasn’t until the invention of the piano that concerti began to written for keyboard instruments and from the nineteenth century onward the piano, and the violin, of course, have been the main concerto instruments we love to hear.
How many of us, however, have flocked to hear a double bass concerto? Certainly the double bass has entered into the jazz repertoire, although its strings there are largely plucked rather than bowed, but what about classical and cross-over music? Ever heard of Dragonetti, Sperger or Bottesini?
Luckily you’ll now get the chance of hearing and becoming a fan of the double bass since, from July 30th to August 5th, Lucca is hosting the sixth ‘Bass2018’, the biennial international double bass festival bringing together musicians, instrument makers, composers and publisher thanks to Lucca’s ‘Boccherini’ conservatoire, the City and Province of Lucca and Cassa di Risparmio Foundation. Events take place in the Palazzo Ducale, Teatro Del Giglio and the Boccherini conservatoire with concerts, master classes, competition and conferences.
Of special interest will be the award for women composer of music for double bass, in collaboration with the Adkins Chiti – Women in Music – Foundation.
The festival’s artistic directors are Gabriele Ragghianti and Alberto Bocini.
Incidentally, this year I attended a concert featuring the double bass in London’s lovely Queen’s house in Greenwich. Performers were harpist Anna Quiroga and double bassist Valentina Ciardelli (also known as ‘Zappawoman’ because of her brilliant arrangements of Frank Zappa’s music) who graduated with the highest honours from Lucca’s own ‘Boccherini’ conservatoire.
Valentina Ciardelli, Anna Quiroga and Stefano Teani will play Zappa, Rossini, Stravinsky, Ciardelli and Puccini in the Saletta Rossa of Lucca’s Istituto Musicale Boccherini on August 3rd at 4.30 PM.”
More information about the festival is available at the excellent web site at
Come passano gli impiegati della City di Londra la loro ora di pranzo? Certi fanno un ’liquid lunch’, cioè si dirigono verso un pub per consumarsi una pinta o due con un ploughman’s lunch (‘pranzo di contadino’) che consiste di pane, formaggio, insalata, qualche fetta di prosciutto, e sotto aceti.
Altri mangeranno i loro sandwich (che in Italia si chiamano tramezzini – non panini) in uno dei piccoli spazi verdi della city. Altri andranno ad ascoltare un concerto gratis di organo in una delle belle chiese seicentesche costruite da Wren dopo il grande incendio del 1666.
Il Requiem di Fauré è sempre stato il mio preferito brano per l’oltre-tomba. Non impaurisce come il requiem di Verdi, oppure quello di Berlioz, ma dona la consolazione ed un’ulteriore conforto.
Queste sue doti hanno fatto risalto nella esecuzione che sentii. L’unione delle voci bianche di una scuola di Londra e un coro di uomini era pressoché a perfezione.
La scuola fu fondata nel 1949 ed è un tipo che in inglese si chiama preparatory school cioè per ragazzi (e dal 1981 per ragazze) dall’età di 4 a 13 anni. Conta 110 professori e 989 alunni.
Come tante scuole inglesi Hill House è nota per la sua divisa scolastica che, in questo caso, è molto particolare: maglia color senape, knickerbocker di velluto a coste e cappello lavorato a maglia. L’idea del fondatore era che gli alunni potessero così fare le lezioni in classe e praticare lo sport senza dover sempre cambiarsi. Nel mio servizio i ragazzi portano la divisa estiva.
Aggiungo che, da piccolo, il principe Carlo erede del trono britannico fu un alunno di questa scuola. Questo potrebbe spiegare il suo amore per la musica.
Sentite come sono bravi questi ragazzi! Anche questo concerto era gratis con offerte per la chiesa a volontà.
The format was a well-tried and tested one of combining music with poetry. Sometimes the music, played by ever-developing Giacomo Brunini, was played solo;
Sometimes it was combined with poems and stories beautifully declaimed by Marco Nicoli and Piero Nannini (with excellent cueing).
And sometimes the text was recited without guitar.
There was one particular stand-alone story recited with typical verve by Piero Nannini from a collection of stories by a Polish writer, Slawomir Mrozek, referring to a hole in a bridge joining two towns which no-one town could decide to repair.
I think the laughter this hilarious story aroused was because of the resonance it had with us poor locals infested by an increasing number of pot-holes in our area.
It’s already the sixth year this unmissable event has taken place at Fornoli and every year the format is different and equally enjoyable. All praise is due to Marco Nicoli and the Mammalucco association for putting on such great and informative entertainment.
Don’t miss this great event taking place in the sagrato (that’s Italian for church forecourt) of Fornoli church. You are promised brilliant guitar playing by Giacomo Brunini interspersed with poetry readings. One of the readers is Piero Nannini, the well-known author and actor whose collection of stories called ‘l’angelo di gesso’ casts magical light on our local sights including Borgo a Mozzano’s Ponte Della Maddalena (aka ‘Del Diavolo’.)
It’s several years that journalist actor Marco Nicoli has been presenting this summer event and a truly enjoyable and convivial evening is assured. Be there!
