Notti Trasfigurate - Musica a Villa Simonetta, Milan.

Everything can happen in a bright summer evening, a concert for piano, for example. 

The concert was part of the free music festival Notti Trasfigurate, Transfigured Nights, held at Villa Simonetta, in Milan, from June 18th to July 4th, for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Civica Scuola di Musica, the Civic School of Music. Each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, after an Aperitivo in musica, Aperitif in music, the most talented students of the School played pieces of music in the back garden of the villa. Performances moved indoor when sudden storms and unusual low temperatures threatened the evening, making us regret the frantic waving of fans and the herds of mosquitoes of the previous years. I regularly forget about these lovely summer concerts, and this year was no exception. I only went once, for an evening that began with Claude Debussy's notes.

A double row of red roses marked the way from the anonymous gate to the villa. Villa Simonetta is the seat of the Civica Scuola di Musica and the only existing Renaissance villa in Milan. Couples, families, young students and small groups of friends arrived in dribs and drabs, and took a seat lowering the voice. After the flute solo performance, four hands run over the keyboard playing a music composed in another century: Debussy's Petite suite (1886-89). The first movements of this composition were inspired by two poems included in the collection Fêtes galantes, written in 1869 by the French poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). Music evokes their elegant and playful atmosphere, where joy and sensuality are veiled by melancholy. Verlaine’s words recreate scenes and characters of a fanciful past, of an Eighteenth century of illusions and artifices played by dames, knights and maskers under the moon. It is the same aristocratic and sparkling world presented in the canvases of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), French painter master in the genre Fêtes galantes.


Everything can happen in a bright summer evening, to discover unexpected connections among music, words and paintings, for example.

Concert details:

Giugno 27 ....
ore 21 Suggestioni e immagini
I parte Debussy
Syrinx, per flauto solo
D. Cottica, Flauto
Petite Suite, per pianoforte a quattro mani
En bateau, Ballet
I. Rossi, P. Calabretta, pianoforte
.....

June 27 ...

at 21.00 Suggestions and images

I part Debussy

Syrinx, for solo flute

D. Cottica, Flute

Petite Suite, for piano four hands

En bateau, Ballet

I. Rossi, P. Calabretta, piano

....

L'Embarquement pour Cythère 
(The Embarkation for Cythera), 
1717, Jean-Antoine Watteau

En Bateau
...
Cependant la lune se lève
Et l'esquif en sa course brève
File gaîment sur l’eau qui rêve.

By Boat

...

Meanwhile the moon rises

and the steamboat in its short spin

gaily skims over the water that dreams

P.Verlaine








Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Milan, June 2013.
painting: L'Embarquement pour Cythère (The Embarkation for Cythera),  1717, Jean-Antoine Watteau, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Embarkation_for_Cythera‎

Further Links:
Milano Civica Scuola di Musica - Fondazione Milano®, Villa Simonetta - via Stilicone 36 - Milano -
http://www.fondazionemilano.eu/musica/