Dear friends, this will be one of my last gifts to you and, I think, one of the most important:
PRAECONIUM SOLITUDINIS
o siano
Praeludii, Ricercate, Passaggi, Arie & un Passagallo
per il Violino solo senza basso
with the addition of some inscribed texts
and with the images by Silvia Camporesi
Please watch the video here:
Praeconium Solitudinis - Video
Praeconium Solitudinis is a story dedicated to all fragile souls who struggle: a story made up of almost two hours of music, fifty texts by poets, writers and philosophers (in their original languages and with English translations), eighteen very personal and in colour photographic images: all enclosed in a 100-page book.
It is a project that began to creep into my mind many years ago, and which over time has evolved, changing shape a thousand times until it assumed this final form. An idea that I have never abandoned in the course of my life but which, at the same time, I never felt ready to implement.
A poem by Rainer Maria Rilke reads: "Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart".
On the one hand, it was a simple matter of modesty that held me back: showing certain intimate sides of one's being is not easy, especially for those people who are naturally characterized by shyness. On the other hand, I was uncertain and skeptical about what the impact on the public could have been, about the real interest that such a project would have aroused in people.
However, the time that passed, even without my intervention, in the meantime made things mature slowly in an underground way, pushing me to choose one piece or text rather than another, gradually adding grains of determination to my insecurity, just like the sand of an hourglass goes down slowly but surely.
The advancing age finally pushed me to act and gradually convinced me that this would be the right time to make "Praeconium Solitudinis" and offer this story of mine to everyone.
A story does not only speak of what we have experienced and what we remember but also of what we have dreamed of living and imagine we have experienced, of what we have experienced badly and how we can try to reconcile with ourselves. As Oscar Wilde said: no man is rich enough to buy back his past. However, dreaming about the past, among other things, can mean trying to understand it and improve oneself.
This strange project speaks about the journey of an artist: of the need to isolate oneself in order to remain in direct contact with the ideals that have been chosen and that it is not always possible to live in the midst of the world’s tumult, of the search for beauty. There is an area in the brain that could be defined as "poetic memory" and which records everything that has fascinated us, that has moved us, everything that brings us closer to beauty.
I felt the need to release my senses.
I believe that there are not only the five physical senses (touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing): we are also endowed with five spiritual senses, which are emotion, imagination, intuition, consciousness and inspiration. Life goes far beyond the physical dimension. Through all these senses, the path that describes a life from various points of view has been outlined.
Loneliness is neither isolation nor estrangement: it can instead be a search for different and superior forms of communication. I don't mean it as a rejection of the world but rather as a willingness to change it.
Little or too much, right or wrong, this is what I have to offer to those who want to listen, read and observe.
“I have searched for myself: one does not seek anything but this.”
(Cesare Pavese)
________________________
PRAECONIUM SOLITUDINIS is a Media Book that can be purchased here:
Dimensions: cm. 20.6 x 15 x 1
The label ARCANA has reprinted our CD recording of some violin sonatas by Francesco Maria Veracini: it was our 1st CD with Arcana!
Quando Michel Bernstein nel 1994 mi chiese di iniziare ad incidere dischi per Arcana la scelta del programma del primo CD cadde su alcune opere di Francesco Maria Veracini, all’epoca non ancora troppo conosciute.
Veracini (1690-1768), di cui quest’anno ricorrono 350 anni dalla morte, è stato un grande violinista fiorentino dal temperamento fiero e acceso, un concertista famoso che ha traversato l’Europa ed ha lasciato segni indelebili in luoghi che furono teatro di una vivace vita musicale come Dresda, Londra, Francoforte e Praga. Le sue sonate per violino ci testimoniano un’immaginazione sempre accesa ed
una verve tutta personale unite ad una 
tecnica strumentale assai brillante.
Le 12 sonate dell’op. I (1721) si dividono in 6 sonate cameristiche che contengono Ouvertures o Preludi seguiti da suite di danze di vario genere e 6 sonate “da chiesa” in cinque movimenti fra cui spicca sempre almeno un fugato. La scrittura violinistica è notevolmente più ardita rispetto allo stile austero di Corelli.
Le Sonate Accademiche op. II (1744) appartengono all’ultimo dei periodi londinesi del violinista toscano. Esse si distinguono, oltre che per l’originalità e l’eccellenza della musica, grazie alla presenza di segni dinamici ed indicazioni esecutive inusuali per l’epoca, per l’uso frequente dell’arcata lunga tipica dei massimi virtuosi italiani, di una abbondante varietà di colpi d’arco e di invenzioni idiomatiche di grande effetto. L’autore vi opera una commistione dei generi e gli antichi fugati vengono sostituiti da “Capricci” molto estesi che utilizzano sì svariate tecniche contrappuntistiche ma servono per lo più come spazio libero per il dispiegamento di un virtuosismo estroverso ed esuberante.
Recorded in Longiano, Fondazione Tito Balestra (Castello Malatestiano), Cesena in June 2017 with a booklet essay by Francesco Zimei In English - Français - Italiano - Deutsch
“Cross-dressing Bach” is how Enrico Gatti and Rinaldo Alessandrini have chosen to call their Bach programme of rare works and alternative versions. They experiment with how marvelously enriched the musical writing becomes by changes in scoring, often with the instruments permeating one another, as the inversion of roles is reached. The flexibility of the instrumentation is linked to various stages in the composer’s career, to practical contingencies, and above all to the inexhaustible striving for perfection that induced Bach, according to his first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, to revise his works many times, refining them in every minimum detail. This compels us to take into account a rather different story from one that is rooted in our mentality as listeners, conditioned by the crystallization of the repertoire, and extorted by the Urtext-philosophy.”
(From the booklet essay by Francesco Zimei)
THE NEW RECORDING of Ensemble Aurora:
music by Leonardo Leo, Pietro Marchitelli, Giovanni Carlo Cailò, Nicola Fiorenza, Francesco Paolo Supriani
violins:
Enrico Gatti, Marie Rouquié,
Joanna Huszcza, Sebastiano Airoldi
cello:
Gaetano Nasillo
organ & harpsichord:
Guido Morini
Musicological research: Guido Olivieri (The University of Texas at Austin)
Cooproduced by Fondazione Pietà de' Turchini (Napoli) and Outhere Music France
With the support of "Gaudete" - Festival Internazionale di Musica Antica
Special thanks to the Istituto Abruzzese di Storia Musicale
Cover: Roman bronze from Ercolano, photo by Mimmo Jodice
ARCANA - Artistic Director: Giovanni Sgaria
Happy anniversary, Ensemble Aurora!
In autumn 2016 Ensemble Aurora celebrates its 30th anniversary: the very first concerts of the group, founded and lead by the violinist Enrico Gatti, took place in Milano and Bologna at the beginning of September 1986, then the ensemble went to Fusignano (Ravenna), the native town of Arcangelo Corelli, where an international symposium on the composer was held. The first recording (Corelli’s triosonatas) was made then.
We will celebrate this anniversary on the 4th of december 2016 in Modena. Everybody is invited to join us in the San Carlo church from 11am until 13am. There will be free admission for our ex-tempore concert and everybody can come, enjoy fresh music and talk to the performers: be welcome!
Finally my long article on the history
of the different ornamentation styles
from the XVI century to the beginning of the XIX century
is now available: almost 120 pages of full immersion
in the most various instrumental and vocal diminutions,
with particular attention to those written for the violin.
With 75 plates and a 9 page long bibliography.
«Però ci vole pacientia»:
un excursus sull'arte della diminuzione
nei secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII
«per uso di chi avrà volontà di studiare»,
pp. 71-188, in «Regole per ben suonare e cantare»
Quaderni del Conservatorio «Giuseppe Verdi» di Milano
n.s. 2/2014
Edizioni ETS, Pisa 2015
pp. 227, € 23,00
Grandezze & Meraviglie and Gruppo Arcomelo 2013
present
THE BONONCINIS: FROM MODENA TO EUROPE
(1666-1747)
International Symposium
Modena, 2-4 December 2016
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Enrico Gatti (Royal Conservatoire, Den Haag, NL - Conservatorio "G. B. Martini", Bologna)
; Guido Olivieri (The University of Texas, Austin, USA)
; Agnese Pavanello (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel, CH);
Marc Vanscheeuwijck (University of Oregon, Eugene, USA);
Francesco Zimei (Istituto Abruzzese di Storia Musicale)
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Festival Musicale Estense “Grandezze & Meraviglie” and the Gruppo Arcomelo 2013 are organizing an international symposium on the Bononcini family during the first weekend of December 2016. The conference will focus on the period that begins with the artistic début of Giovanni Maria (Primi frutti del Giardino musicale op. 1, 1666)— launching the golden age of the Modena violin school—through the European success of the Musico Prattico (1673), paralleling that of the ducal court after the marriage (also in 1673) of Maria Beatrice d’Este and the Duke of York James Stuart, and the second generation of Bononcini musicians (Giovanni and Antonio Maria), who were instrumentalists and opera composers of great international renown.
Objectives of the conference are both to explore the life, works, and influence (in a European perspective) the Bononcinis had on Emilian instrumental and vocal music, and to shed light on the circulation of music and musicians from Emilia, and on issues of performance practice. Although preference will be given to papers dealing with these three major topics, the scientific committee also invites proposals concerning other aspects of Emilian music, including the relationship between musical patronage and production, reciprocal influences between instrumental and vocal music, instrument making, etc.
The scientific committee, created three years ago for the organization of the Congresso Arcomelo 2013 (Enrico Gatti, Marc Vanscheeuwijck, Guido Olivieri, Agnese Pavanello, and Francesco Zimei) invites paper proposals through submission of an abstract. Paper presentations will be rigorously limited to 25 minutes in order to allow some time for discussion.
The (anonymous) abstract should include the title of the paper and a text of maximum 250 words, and indicate the topic and/or thesis, the state of research, the principal sources used, and a statement on the relevance and originality of the contribution. In a separate file, please indicate the paper title, first and last name of the author, e-mail address, and provide a short half-page CV.
The abstract and additional files should be sent as an attachment to Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo. by March 31st, 2016.
The organization will host all presenters for the entire duration of the conference.
We expect a peer-reviewed publication of the proceedings. Upon their arrival in Modena presenters will be asked to provide a Word file including the complete text of their paper in the format that will be communicated in detail when the scientific committee has completed the selection of papers. After the conference presenters will have 60 days for corrections and modifications before we begin the editorial work of the proceedings.
VERSIONE ITALIANA:
http://www.grandezzemeraviglie.it/index.php/it/progetti/2-non-categorizzato/135-bononcini-congresso-internazionale-2016.html
- A musicological introduction by Guido Olivieri
- Critical notes by Enrico Gatti
- Facsimile of the 12 sonatas in ms. 177 (Biblioteca del Sacro Convento di S. Francesco)
- Critical edition in a separate file, suitable for performance
Texts both in Italian (17 pp.) and English (17 pp.)
LIM - Libreria Musicale Italiana
ENRICO GATTI È IL NUOVO DOCENTE DI VIOLINO BAROCCO PRESSO IL CONSERVATORIO "G.B. MARTINI" DI BOLOGNA
Il Conservatorio "G.B. Martini di Bologna
ha istituito, a partire dal presente anno
accademico 2015-'16,
una nuova cattedra di violino barocco
affidata ad Enrico Gatti,
che termina così il suo servizio
presso il Conservatorio di Milano.
LE ISCRIZIONI SONO ATTUALMENTE APERTE
Per informazioni:
Conservatorio di Musica "Giovan Battista Martini"
Piazza Rossini, 2 - 40126 Bologna
Tel. 051/22.14.83; 051/23.39.75
Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
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http://www.consbo.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/1
*********************************************************
ENRICO GATTI IS THE NEW BAROQUE VIOLIN TEACHER
AT THE BOLOGNA "G.B. MARTINI" CONSERVATORY
The Conservatory of Bologna has started, from the current academic year,
a new baroque violin class and Enrico Gatti will be entrusted with it,
therefore leaving the Conservatory of Milano.
ENROLMENT IS CURRENTLY OPEN
For any information:
Conservatorio di Musica "Giovan Battista Martini"
Piazza Rossini, 2 - 40126 Bologna
Tel. 051/22.14.83; 051/23.39.75
Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. E' necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.
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http://www.consbo.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/1
The label ARCANA has reprinted our CD recording
of J.S.Bach's "MUSICALISCHES OPFER" BWV 1079
The recording - made by Michel Bernstein in 1999
at the Abbaye de Fontevraud (France) -
was unobtainable for several years.
This CD contains also the G major
Triosonata BWV 1038 for Traverso, Violino discordato & b.c.
and the sonata BWV 1021 for Violin and b.c.
Villa Santa Maria (Chieti), 24 - 26 novembre 2014
La città natale di Marchitelli e Mascitti accoglierà un incontro internazionale
ricco di nuovi contributi musicologici e di 3 concerti ad hoc
ARCANGELO CORELLI'S EARLY VIOLIN SONATAS (before 1675): THE "ASSISI SONATAS"
(world première recording)
a new CD from Enrico Gatti & Ensemble Aurora
Glossa GCD 921209
infos at: http://www.glossamusic.com/glossa/reference.aspx?id=335
All the torments, interior conflicts, passions and ravings of a great woman in pain
MEDEA
Melodrama by Georg Anton Benda on text by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter (1775)
Tanja Obalski, Medea
João Luís Paixão, Jason
Laila Neuman, Die Hofmeisterin
Jonas Elzas, Der ältere Knabe
Pibe Baartman, Der jüngere Knabe
ENSEMBLE AURORA:
Enrico Gatti, violin I
Rossella Croce, violin II
Sebastiano Airoldi, viola
Gaetano Nasillo, cello
Research:
Mary Helen Dupree, Jed Wentz
In october 2014 a baroque violin competition will take place in Italy,in a very special and charming place:
the Prince Ruspoli castle in Vignanello (Viterbo),
where Georg Friedrich Haendel spent long periods
and composed many of his works,
mainly the famous "italian cantatas".
Enrico Gatti will be the President of the jury.
Infos at: www.centrostudisgm.it
A new recording of Aurora as a string quartet.
A journey into the philosophy of counterpoint:
through the centuries and works of some
of the greatest composers, the fugue unveils
the sense of a conversation in which
the instruments renounce their own individuality
in order to blend together in spiritual transcendence.
Standing upon the shoulders of these giants of the past,
we moderns can see far into the distance
and forever regain our innocence...