Vicenza, where they eat cats, is a small town, unhurried and uncrowded, pretty and clean; the locals are helpful and friendly; the architecture, if you only take out the grossly overrated Palladio who seems to have butchered every third house in the center, quite satisfying. There are a few good paintings: Santa Corona has a beautiful Baptism of Christ by Bellini, a dusky, beautiful knock off of the Cima in Bragora in Venice. It would be quite a treat to see the two side by side one day. In another church, there is an equally dusky and equally successful sacra conversazione by del Piombo. And this month, at the Leoni, a freshly restored Crivelli triptych from Brera is on show. I had not noticed it last time I was in Milan, it had been covered by so much grime and soot. Now it shines in all its glory.
On Saturdays, there are concerts in the stucco room of one of the Palazzi which is today a government office. Last Saturday it was announced by a pretty girl playing a fife just inside the gate, accompanied by a cello across the courtyard. The fife sounded Japanese – like something from a Noh play. It turned out to be a Stockhausen, who, like most modern western composers has sought inspiration in non-western traditions. Going up the stuccoed stairs one left the piercing sound of the fife behind him and walked into the lukewarm waterfall of an equally strange melody on a husky flute, played by a beautiful tall woman on the half-landing. (The program named her: Giovanna Pescetti). Her instrument was answered by the piano playing through the open door, in the concert hall itself. Walking up felt like being in a beautiful surrealist movie.
The concert was of Stockhausen’s Zodiac, 12 polyphonic pieces without instrument indications, and with built in options for the players to expand the pieces and experiment with the performance. This the musicians – students of the conservatory – did with great gusto, playing while walking, or switching seats, from among the audience and so forth. The music was odd but beautiful. The Fish had a long section of seeming cacophony in which a confusion of strange bubbly swooshing sounds twirled around in the air, like a swarming school. Leo featured a long atonal section whose excitement was driven by relentless rhythm, like something from Prokofiev, only (if you can imagine it) odder. The twins had a beautiful duo for piano and violin. The Capricorn’s dense middle section was scored for a string quartet; and the Aquarius featured the soprano whistling -- with her hands in the pockets of her pants.
It was really quite beautiful.
On Saturdays, there are concerts in the stucco room of one of the Palazzi which is today a government office. Last Saturday it was announced by a pretty girl playing a fife just inside the gate, accompanied by a cello across the courtyard. The fife sounded Japanese – like something from a Noh play. It turned out to be a Stockhausen, who, like most modern western composers has sought inspiration in non-western traditions. Going up the stuccoed stairs one left the piercing sound of the fife behind him and walked into the lukewarm waterfall of an equally strange melody on a husky flute, played by a beautiful tall woman on the half-landing. (The program named her: Giovanna Pescetti). Her instrument was answered by the piano playing through the open door, in the concert hall itself. Walking up felt like being in a beautiful surrealist movie.
The concert was of Stockhausen’s Zodiac, 12 polyphonic pieces without instrument indications, and with built in options for the players to expand the pieces and experiment with the performance. This the musicians – students of the conservatory – did with great gusto, playing while walking, or switching seats, from among the audience and so forth. The music was odd but beautiful. The Fish had a long section of seeming cacophony in which a confusion of strange bubbly swooshing sounds twirled around in the air, like a swarming school. Leo featured a long atonal section whose excitement was driven by relentless rhythm, like something from Prokofiev, only (if you can imagine it) odder. The twins had a beautiful duo for piano and violin. The Capricorn’s dense middle section was scored for a string quartet; and the Aquarius featured the soprano whistling -- with her hands in the pockets of her pants.
It was really quite beautiful.
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