Circolo Amici della Musica “Alfredo Catalani”
Recently I had the great pleasure of accepting a warm invitation from Francesco Pardini to join the growing ‘circle of friends’ known as Circolo Amici della Musica “Alfredo Catalani”.
In 1983 a small group of friends in Porcari, in the province of Lucca, had the idea and passion to start promoting a better appreciation of ‘la musica classica e lirica’ and took the name of Alfredo Catalani who was a contemporary of the more famous composer Giacomo Puccini. Angelo Toschi’s original idea has been developed in three ways by introducing the:
· Targa d’Argento (Silver medal) Luciana Pardini: an award given to emerging young musical talent.
· Premio Città di Lucca Alfredo Catalani: an award recognising the contribution to music and its promotion.
· Concerto degli Auguri (on 8th December each year): a concert held each year as a thanksgiving.
Last year on 14th October 2014 had the pleasure of attending the XVI Edition of the Targa d’Argento award event and musical recital held at the Complesso Monumentale San Micheletto in Lucca. The award went to Max Jota, a very talented and extremely likeable young Brazilian tenor whom I have had the pleasure to hear and meet on several occasions.
More recently, on 16th June 2015 I attended the VIII Edition of the Premio Città award event this year awarded to Adolfo Galli and Mimmo D’Alessandro who are the two men responsible for the hugely successful annual Summer Musical Festival held in the Piazza Napoleone in Lucca. On this occasion the event, that included performances from the four young and talented sopranos known as the DIV4S and also maestro Carlo Bernini on piano, was held in the magnificent setting of the Villa Bernadini in the nearby district of Vicopelago, Lucca. Again the event was introduced by the well-known journalist and musicologist Daniele Rubboli with the mayor of Lucca, Alessandro Tambellini in attendance.
Catalani was born in 1854 four years before Giacomo Puccini and the above inscription on the base of a memorial group statue on Lucca’s walls at the Baluardo San Paolino (or Catalani) commemorates his life. Like Puccini he was born in the centre of Lucca, in a typical medieval property in Via Degli Asili and again similar to Puccini and also Pietro Mascagni he studied musical composition under Antonio Bazzini at the Milan Conservatory. Sadly, Catalani’s premature death from tuberculosis in 1893 aged thirty-nine meant he did not have the opportunity to compose many operas in the growing verismo style that had begun during the 1890s. Catalani died in Milan and was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale where another tutor Amilcare Ponchielli and the famous conductor Auturo Toscanini are also laid to rest.
Catalani’s two most famous operas are Loreley (1890) and La Wally (1892) with the well-known aria Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (“Well, then? I’ll go far away”) being a great personal favourite having seen it performed in the full opera in London’s Holland Park and recently at a selected version of the opera in the Chiostro di San Micheletto produced by the Circolo. Other venues in Lucca where I have seen performances arranged by the Circolo are the Ristorante Puccini and San Luca Palace Hotel where meetings of the Circolo are held frequently.
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