Music and the City

After the public and critical success of the exhibition “Art and the City” by Nando Calabrese held in January 2018 at PAN|Palazzo delle Arti Napoli, a new exhibition is proposed in 2019 that develops and expands on the theme begun with the previous show. The new series of shots features faces of contemporary musicians, captured during the performance of musical pieces, and in the background, unusual locations recall the great musicians who found inspiration in Naples. A new event with images capable of revealing little-known places in the city and encouraging their rediscovery and restoration. The exhibition will be accompanied by a video that will be screened during the opening and—throughout the exhibition, in collaboration with local associations, guided tours to emblematic music sites in Naples and meetings with the portrayed individuals will be promoted, offering opportunities for musical reflection.

1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Palazzo Sessa Flute Marco Gaudino 2 Niccolò Jommelli Palazzo Berio Cello Stefano Sovrani 3 Richard Wagner Villa Doria d'Angri Trombone Michele Apicella 4 Pietro Mascagni Palazzo Cantalupo Horn Simona Amazio 5 Leonardo Leo Palazzo Mirelli di Teora Violin Paola Astarita Violin Gianfranco Biancardi Cello Francesco Scalzo Viola Rosario Di Meglio 6 Sigismund Thalberg Cappella di Villa Thalberg Harpsichord Vikram Siddharth 7 Ernesto Murolo/Ernesto Tagliaferri Palazzo Donn’Anna Guitar Riccardo Del Prete Mandolin Carla Senese 8 Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano) Palazzo Majorana Harp Maria Caccioppoli Voice Sabrina Messina 9 Nicola Porpora Palazzo Caracciolo di Torella Violin Fabiana D’Auria Cello Chiara Mallozzi 10 Gioacchino Rossini Palazzo Barbaja Viola Tsvetanka Asatrjan 11Gaetano Donizetti In Via Nardones, 14 Clarinet Julia Primicile Carafa Bassoon Carmen Bianco 12 Giuseppe Verdi Palazzo Reale Trombone Francesco Fierro Trumpet Emanuele del Prete Tuba Luigi Izzo Snare drum Alfonso Izzo Clarinet Daniele Albano Flute Italia De Caro

Music, mysterious interpreter of places

Massimo Bignardi

The idea of retracing the streets of one's own city, in the same way as flipping through an old calendar, holds together Nando Calabrese's experiences in photography. Colson Whitehead, in his The Colossus of New York, published in Italian in the early 2000s, wrote that our streets "are calendars that contain what we have been and what we will be tomorrow." He outlines, that is, the idea of a unicum within which different concepts of time are inscribed, even if they are conditions of one another: memory becomes active, creative and, therefore, regenerates processes and is already the future. I mean that in its flow, time does not erase any of the traces, on the contrary, it makes them feed expectations, because waiting already implies a change. Nando Calabrese has a particular relationship with his city, the incredible volcanic Naples; at least as far as photography is concerned, which does not adhere to a vision typical of Cartier-Bresson's followers, that is, a photography that bears witness to its own time, avoiding "the artifice that kills human truth." Calabrese, as he has already amply clarified in the sequence of shots proposed in the exhibition "Art and the City," set up in the first months of 2018 at PAN in Naples, seeks precisely the artifice that, after all, is the engine, the very identity of the city of Parthenope. The artists, their works, the architectures traced, obeying the structure of the posed shot, a narrative thread that stretched, slipping into the secrets of hidden, mental relationships, then giving life to imaginative constructions: one among the many beautiful images that accompany the catalog curated by Antonella Nigro, the one portraying Rosaria Matarese at Palazzo Mannajuolo, on the spiral staircase, a great architectural invention by Giulio Ulisse Arata, creator of the Liberty season that marked the city's renewal at the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Nando posed, one by one, not only the characters, but a complex of memories and current events that weave the fabric of Naples' cultural vibrancy: real 'plastic complexes' installed in iconic places of the city, in the solemn architectures of one of the most 'luminous' (as Stendhal said) capitals of the Old Continent. He thus established a relationship with time, however, keeping at bay both the nostalgias that veil the past and the exuberance of the 'new' at all costs. With the sequence of shots proposed today in this exhibition, the viewfinder of his camera frames other pages of Neapolitan life: the city of music, that is, the city that was and is Bellini's, Cimarosa's, Paisiello's, Scarlatti's and down to Pergolesi; the city that hosted the world premiere of Bizet's Carmen, in that theater located in the heart of the old university city, between Port'Alba, Piazza Dante, the old Policlinico, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Museum commissioned by the Bourbons, now the National Archaeological Museum. In short, the city of the great musicians who studied and celebrated Naples, in the most beautiful pages of the history of music. Like the images collected in "Art and the City," the twelve shots (presented in large format) that articulate the theme of this exhibition, follow a post-production choice that introduces color into the structure of a black and white photograph, even if, at times, they lead one to think the opposite, that is, that from the color structure, Nando constructs an 'in place', a sort of identity (the 'in' of Hillman) enclosed in the scale of grays, originated from the polar contrast of black and white. A clear example is offered by the photograph entitled Harp and Voice Palazzo Majorano Caccioppoli Messina: the woman's body, the gesture that accompanies the singing, are integrated into the architecture of the portal, designed by Sanfelice, with the gray of the piperno masterfully embedded in the wall overlooking the heart of the San Ferdinando district. There is no need to resort to color: Calabrese knows well that the plastic dimension does not require an expressive value to be entrusted to it. It is different for the harp, as well as for the other musical instruments, as it was also for the works, the art objects in the aforementioned cycle exhibited at PAN. Schönberg wrote in the preface to the Texts, published in 1926: "The author of the text must reserve on the surface the space destined for music, since it aims to penetrate in depth."

Musical journey in the Gulf of Naples

Sergio Attanasio

The most beautiful theater in the world, a king and a court who loved to surround themselves with international artists, a land and an enchanting landscape that over time attracted to Naples the greatest European musicians and composers. From the young Mozart with his father in May 1770 at Palazzo Sessa in Cappella Vecchia in the residence of the English minister William Hamilton and in the Royal Chapel of Portici, to Wagner who from January 1880 stayed at Villa Doria d’Angri in Posillipo where he wrote much of Parsifal and then was also at the Hotel Vittoria in Sorrento and at Villa Rufolo in Ravello.

From Rossini who from 1815 was a guest of the impresario Barbaja and composed the Overture of Otello between the palace on Via Toledo and the villa in Mergellina, to Donizetti who from June 1828 lived on the main floor of a palace on Via Nardones where he would write Lucia di Lammermoor just a few steps from the San Carlo theater, where Verdi would perform on four occasions: in 1835 with the premiere of Alzira, in 1849 with Luisa Miller, in 1858 with Simon Boccanegra and in 1872/73 with Don Carlos and Aida. These are perhaps the most prominent artists among the musicians and composers who have stayed in our city. Then some decided to build a mansion by the sea or on the Posillipo hill, like the Sicilian tenor Roberto Stagno and his wife, the soprano Gemma Bellincioni, who were the first performers in 1870 of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and bought and renovated a seventeenth-century residence, the ancient palace of the Dukes of Cantalupo in Mergellina, where they dreamed of staying for life. And an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist like Thalberg who, after marrying the daughter of the Neapolitan bass Luigi Lablache, was captivated by our city and lived between the palace at Monte di Dio and the villa with chapel in Posillipo where he died in 1871. But Naples has always rightly been considered the European capital of music and musical education for young people, where Leonardo Leo, first a student and then a teacher, at the Conservatory of Pietà dei Turchini and Nicolò Porpora, also a teacher at one of the Naples conservatories, S. Maria di Loreto, were welcomed into the homes of nobles and foreign ministers such as at Palazzo Mirelli di Teora, a work by Fanzago on the Riviera di Chiaia, or at Palazzo Caracciolo di Torella at Largo Ferrandina. At Palazzo Berio, let us remember that in 1772, the Court even moved there for the celebrations of the baptism of Maria Teresa Carolina, firstborn of Ferdinand IV, and in the garden Vanvitelli built an elliptical hall and a theater and a serenade for five voices was performed entitled Cerere placata, with music by Niccolò Jommelli and sets designed by Carlo Bibiena.

From the four conservatories of Naples not only small musicians and young composers were trained, but also sweet and brilliant voices like those of the castrati, such as Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) or Caffarelli (Gaetano Maiorano) who, after singing in all the European courts, fulfilled his dream by building himself a palace in the city in the Spanish Quarters a few steps from the San Carlo Theater. But not only music and opera. How can we not remember the Neapolitan melodies of Murolo and Tagliaferri with mandolins and guitar on the sea of Posillipo, or under a tavern at Palazzo Donn’Anna, where the Gulf of Naples shines in the distance and Vesuvius frames a dreamlike panorama.

Strolling among music and palaces

Stefano Sovrani

A flute to represent Mozart's presence in Naples, a symbol that evokes a very famous opera (The Magic Flute) and recalls the virtuosity and delicacy of the sound. For Niccolò Iommelli, the cello brings us back to string instruments, fully enhanced in the wonderful Requiem by the musician from Aversa. The same strings for Leonardo Leo, set for the occasion at Palazzo Mirelli di Teora. Palace after palace and musician after musician, I imagined a path to offer visitors of the exhibition Music and the City a fil rouge that would lead them through the meanders of the musical genius of the Neapolitan school, which makes the city the undisputed capital of this art form, both yesterday and today. And so, Richard Wagner hovers through the rooms of Villa Doria D’Angri as he completes his Parsifal, through the presence of the brass instruments he so favored. Then Gaetano Donizetti, who composed 50 operas and premiered as many as 29 in Naples, is represented by wind instruments such as the oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, which present the main themes in his works. From a photo to music, passing through the story of Sigismund Thalberg, who fell in love with Naples to the point of staying there until the end of his days, seated at his piano in the splendid Villa di Posillipo. That piano in which he excelled so much as to rival the better-known Franz Liszt. And Palazzo Donn’Anna, also in Posillipo, serves as the backdrop for the melodies of mandolin and guitar that bring us back to Ernesto Murolo and Ernesto Tagliaferri, intrinsically linked to those places by unforgettable romances. On another front, represented by his band instruments, Giuseppe Verdi, who would premiere some works in Naples, including the famous “Luisa Miller.” And bel canto could not be missing in a city that gave birth to the inventors of opera buffa (Iommelli, Piccini, Cimarosa, and others), which in the palace built by the wealthy castrato Caffarelli, is sublimated in the image of a singer accompanied by a harpist: the sound of the harp as a mirror of the purity and clarity of a voice.

The Vesevi Rooms

In the corner at the end of the courtyard, beneath the Great Hall, there is a wide entrance with a beautiful Catalan portal in piperno that leads to a long hallway called the "porticale," at the end of which is the hanging passage of the eastern curtain wall of the castle facing the sea.
Along the perimeter of this gallery, to the right, there is access to a large vaulted room already used in the fifteenth century as an artillery warehouse; to the left, there are two rooms where, in the Aragonese period, the "offices of the Court" were located, in particular: the "riposto", the bakery, the wine cellar, the kitchen, and the "musaria" (a place where foodstuffs were stored).
At the far end of this hallway, to the right, a small door opens with a narrow staircase that gives access to the famous prison known as the "of the crocodile". Originally it was called the "Fossa del Miglio" because it was intended to store the castle's grain and in some cases was also used as a horrible prison. According to an unfounded legend, a ferocious animal lived in this pit and devoured the prisoners.
Through the room opposite the prison, one accesses the evocative and complex spaces, on several levels, of the Beverello Tower located on the side of the pier of the same name.
Since 1993, the Castle has been included in the "Restoration Plan for the Public Monumental Heritage of the Historic Center of Naples," thanks to which, starting in 1995, restoration work on the monumental structure began, based on a project by Prof. Arch. Arnaldo Venditti in agreement with the then Superintendency for Environmental and Architectural Heritage of Naples and Province and the Naples City Administration. The restorations also involved the then Archaeological Superintendency of Naples and Caserta as well as the Superintendency for BAS of Naples and Province. Among the recovered spaces are also the aforementioned "porticale" areas of the castle where, through an archaeological investigation, it was possible to identify remains from the Roman period dating from the end of the 1st century BC to the late imperial age, as well as an area used as a necropolis established between the mid-5th and early 6th centuries AD.
Moreover, during this excavation, important evidence of the original Angevin castle layout emerged, with the discovery of fragments of fresco decoration believed to belong to the cycle of Giotto frescoes that originally decorated the Palatine Chapel. In addition, interesting fragments of medieval ceramic artifacts, Renaissance majolica, and everyday pottery were brought to light. In the lower part of this complex stratification, distinct volcanic deposits appeared, overlapping from the Phlegraean eruption 9,000 years ago to the Vesuvius eruption 2,000 years ago.
After this restoration, the spaces of the "porticale" have been made accessible, in their complex stratification, thanks to a special architectural arrangement with glass flooring that allows visitors to admire the fascinating succession of the various settlements that have characterized the tuffaceous relief on which Castel Nuovo was founded.

The "porticale" area of the castle