Saverio Gabrielli & Lorenzo Bernardi

THE ITINERARIES OF ITALIAN VIRTUOsos

Italian music as a bridge between cultures

Italian music has historically always managed to emerge becoming a model for other cultures. Land of dominion, the Peninsula has, over the centuries, absorbed the influences of those who besieged and occupied it, from Magna Graecia to the Roman Empire, passing from the Middle Ages with its Gregorian chants, up to the Renaissance and the great Neapolitan, Roman and Venetian Italian Opera.

The project aims to investigate pages of composers who for various reasons have left Italy to seek their fortune abroad. This is the case of Niccolò Paganini and Mauro Giuliani. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the two artists sought their fortune in Vienna, a city that later consecrated them as great virtuosos and founders of the Italian violin and guitar school;
The connection with Italy does not end here; the great Hungarian violinist Franz von Vecsey, remembered as the dedicatee of the concerto for violin and orchestra op. 47 by Jean Sibelius, lived and worked in Venice between 1926 and 1935 and in Rome, where he died at the age of 42.

Astor Piazzolla himself has deep Italian roots; the only child of Italian immigrants in Argentina from Trani (Puglia). In 1973 he moved to Milan where he recorded his famous album Libertango the following year for the Carosello record company, thanks to the support of the music publisher Aldo Pagani.
The guiding thread of this journey through time and space is precisely that of highlighting how Italian culture has traveled the world thanks to great artists and has been strongly suggestive for other cultures.

Programme

Niccolò Paganini

Genova 1782- Nizza 1840

Sonata No.1 for violin and guitar, from ‘Centone di Sonate’
• Introduzione – Allegro 
• Rondoncino
• Cantabile in D major

Mauro Giuliani

Biscegelie 1781- Napoli 1829

Serenata Op. 127
• Maestoso
• Minuetto – Allegretto – Trio
• Tema – Andantino Mosso
• Variazione I – Piu Mosso
• Variazione II – Piu Lento
• Variazione III – Primo Tempo
• Rondo – Allegro

Gabriel Fauré

Pamiers 1845 - Paris 1924

Après un Rêve
Les berceaux

Pietro Mascagni

Livorno 1863 - Rome 1945

Intermezzo – from Cavalleria Rusticana

Franz von Vecsey

Budapest 1893 - Rome 1935

Valse Triste

Astor Piazzolla

Mar de la Plata 1921 - Buenos Aires 1992

• Bordel 1900
• Cafe 1930
• Nightclub 1960