patrikpen: Old and New in Music and Vision 28 July

Old and New

GIUSEPPE PENNISI reports from
Siena's Chigiana International Festival

Last year, I reported on the Italian Summer's longest and most interesting musical festival: the Chigiana International Festival and Summer Academy in Siena (A Long Musical Summer, 28 July 2015), explaining that the festival was built on two different experiences: the Chigiana Academy of Music (started in 1938) and the Chigiana Week (started after World War II). Both were initiatives by a private sponsor, Count Chigi-Saracini, who had organized a contemporary music festival in 1928. The new director, Nicola Sani, a composer and also Superintendent of the Bologna Teatro Comunale, had the idea of fusing these two ventures. Academy of Music masterclass participants are selected via a worldwide competition, and have the best international musicians as their instructors. Necessarily, they focus on the classics. Their concerts in the magnificent Palazzo Chigi-Saracini are open to the public. The Siena Academy is a gateway to fame. During the period of the Academy, this year 8 July until 31 August, their concerts are intertwined with first performances by contemporary composers. Siena has two lovely theatres and several other venues — churches and palaces — for performances.

Teatro dei Rinnovati, Siena, on 8 July 2016, during the Chigiana International Festival. Click on the image for higher resolution

During the first edition of the festival in 2015 there was a certain amount of improvising. This year, the fifty concerts have a central theme: Spazio nel Suono ('Space in Sound'), based on Gurnemanz's last verse at the end of Act I of Parsifal: 'zum Raum wird hier die Zeit' ('Here Space Becomes Time').

'Sound in Space' - Chigiana International Festival (8 July 2016). Click on the image for higher resolution

On this theme, the 2016 festival presents contemporary and near-contemporary composers (Ben Frost, Salvatore Sciarrino, Gérard Grisey, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giacinto Scelsi and György Kurtág), those of the great classical tradition (Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms) plus those who have elevated jazz to the role of art (David Krakauer and Avishai Cohen). The festival is dedicated to György Kurtág on his ninetieth birthday: three concerts are based on his music and there are often quotations from his work in other music performed.

I was able to attend only very few concerts and get a flair of the festival. The inauguration (8 July 2016) was Music for Sólaris by Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason, with videos by Nick Robertson and Brian Eno. The Orchestra della Toscana, mostly strings, was conducted by Bjarnason, who also played a well-prepared piano, whilst Ben Frost was at the laptop (to give an electronic flavor to the strings) and played an electric guitar. Music for Sólaris is a one hour theme poem (with eleven sections), based on the 1963 Tarkovskij movie, which, on its own account, was drawn from a novel by Stanislaw Lem. Apparently both novel and movie are science fiction but deal with very philosophical subjects such as the meaning of life. The score married Philip Glass' minimalism with traditional melodic twentieth century music. The Teatro dei Rinnovati was full and the audience was enthusiastic.

The 2016 Chigiana International Festival opening concert - 'Music for Sólaris' (8 July 2016). Click on the image for higher resolution

The 9 July concert in Teatro dei Rozzi was for specialists. Shadow Play was the first concert of the series dedicated to Kurtág, performed by a small ensemble: Yoshua Fortunato (clarinet), Francesco Dillon (cello) and Francesco Prode (piano), and was essentially an anthology of Kurtág's works, mostly solo pieces. The second part was Schattenspiel ('Shadow Theatre') by Láslzó Tihanyi, a sixty-year-old disciple and friend of Kurtág. An interesting feature was the strong connection between Kurtág and Tihanyi, on the one hand, and Renaissance and even Medieval music on the other, even though in Kurtág there are reminiscences of the second Viennese school. The audience, all contemporary music specialists, were enthralled.

From left to right: Francesco Dillon, Yoshua Fortunato, Francesco Prode and Láslzó Tihanyi at the Teatro dei Rozzi, Siena (Chigiana International Festival, 9 July 2016). Photo © 2016 Roberto Testi. Click on the image for higher resolution

The 15 July concert in St Augustine's Church, devoted to one of the best known Italian composers, Salvatore Sciarrino, was a great success. Quartetto Prometeo performed together with Matteo Cesari (flute). The first section consisted of fifteen short etudes by Domenico Scarlatti as revised by Sciarrino. The second section was a piece by Sciarrino for string quartet and flute: Trovare un equilibrio è necessario? ('Do we need to find a balance?')