Musica alla Veneta
I have, in recent days, attended a number of musical events here in Venice, all of them free. Let me describe some of them to you.
The first ended up not being much of a concert at all. Reading about events in Venice on the city’s website, I saw the word “cello” and thought it would be a nice show in one of Venice’s ancient churches,
San Giobbe (Saint Job). Instead of an hour of cello music, however, it was 50 minutes of sitting on a hard pew while listening to lectures on how the histories of Venice and Florence were intertwined, interspersed infrequently with 3-minute pieces performed by a solo cellist (who wasn’t bad, actually). Not understanding much of the lecture, my main lesson that night was that Italians really do queue as shown in this very funny video.
As part of the Festa de San Piero de Casteo (the Venetian spelling/pronunciation of “San Pietro di Castello”), a number of free concerts have been put on in and around that church in the past week, which is located at the eastern end of Venice and is quite convenient to Sant’Elena. The first was an organ concert by Claudio Micconi, on the organ that was constructed by Pietro Nacchini in 1754.
Sadly, there were only about 15 attendees, but what a glorious church to hear a concert in! That particular church was built in 1595 or so and has been wonderfully preserved (by Save Venice).
The organ concert was going along well until we reached one item in the program entitled Aria: Nova Cyclopeias Harmonica, when the organist seemed to stop to allow the bells to ring in the leaning campanile outside. But then I realized – he was playing the bells! I wonder if Venetians are so accustomed to hearing church bells ring that they didn’t even notice, or whether a few ears perked up and wondered what on earth was going on with the bells of San Pietro?
One also can’t forget the free music at night in the Piazza San Marco, either. Sure, you can pay 10 euros to sit and drink a coffee at
Florian’s or one of the other cafés, but why not just stand ten feet farther back and listen to the music for free? Hang out in the Piazza for 10 minutes and you’ll notice they play a variety of classical-pop tunes that typically appeal to the lowest common denominator, but hey, it’s free, and the players are quite good.
I’ve been listening to “Radio Italia Solo Musica Italiana” and hearing a few things I liked (e.g., Mario Venuti and Claudio Baglioni), and also working my way through the complete discography of Zucchero. It’s not exactly live, but it’s Italian music nonetheless.
Most notable, though, has to have been the Ska-J concert, part of the Festa de San Piero again, that I attended last Thursday. Ska-J is what remains of Pitura Freska, a well-known Venetian band that called it quits a few years ago. The concert was delayed more than an hour because of heavy rain, but I was rewarded for my patience. And when it did start, the power failed on stage two separate times, but the band kept playing. It was an excellent show, everything I hoped it would be. The by all accounts legendary Marco “Furio” Forieri is their leader, and he did a great job of getting the crowd, mostly teenagers and 20-somethings with a bottle of prosecco in hand, dancing and singing along.
Ska-J played all their hits, which I knew from listening to them on their website. I bought a CD and stayed right until the end (around midnight). While I didn’t understand many of the words (although I’m getting better at recognizing when somebody speaks/sings in Venetian – watch this music video for their well-known song “Santa Marta” and listen for the slurred words and other unique pronunciations), their jazz influences (the J in Ska-J) certainly appeal to me, and their whole act is feel-good and lighthearted and generally able to transcend linguistic boundaries.
By the way, did you hear that Venice now has another female gondolier? Much was made a couple years ago of Alexandra Hai who, being foreign-born and a woman, was not welcomed by the gondolier guilds (that may be an understatement) and ended up rowing her gondola privately for a hotel. Giorgia Boscolo has a more legitimate claim, however, being the daughter of a Venetian gondolier herself. We’ll see how it works out…
Finally, there are new sets of photos posted here, here, and here.
The first ended up not being much of a concert at all. Reading about events in Venice on the city’s website, I saw the word “cello” and thought it would be a nice show in one of Venice’s ancient churches,
As part of the Festa de San Piero de Casteo (the Venetian spelling/pronunciation of “San Pietro di Castello”), a number of free concerts have been put on in and around that church in the past week, which is located at the eastern end of Venice and is quite convenient to Sant’Elena. The first was an organ concert by Claudio Micconi, on the organ that was constructed by Pietro Nacchini in 1754.
The organ concert was going along well until we reached one item in the program entitled Aria: Nova Cyclopeias Harmonica, when the organist seemed to stop to allow the bells to ring in the leaning campanile outside. But then I realized – he was playing the bells! I wonder if Venetians are so accustomed to hearing church bells ring that they didn’t even notice, or whether a few ears perked up and wondered what on earth was going on with the bells of San Pietro?
One also can’t forget the free music at night in the Piazza San Marco, either. Sure, you can pay 10 euros to sit and drink a coffee at
I’ve been listening to “Radio Italia Solo Musica Italiana” and hearing a few things I liked (e.g., Mario Venuti and Claudio Baglioni), and also working my way through the complete discography of Zucchero. It’s not exactly live, but it’s Italian music nonetheless.
Most notable, though, has to have been the Ska-J concert, part of the Festa de San Piero again, that I attended last Thursday. Ska-J is what remains of Pitura Freska, a well-known Venetian band that called it quits a few years ago. The concert was delayed more than an hour because of heavy rain, but I was rewarded for my patience. And when it did start, the power failed on stage two separate times, but the band kept playing. It was an excellent show, everything I hoped it would be. The by all accounts legendary Marco “Furio” Forieri is their leader, and he did a great job of getting the crowd, mostly teenagers and 20-somethings with a bottle of prosecco in hand, dancing and singing along.
By the way, did you hear that Venice now has another female gondolier? Much was made a couple years ago of Alexandra Hai who, being foreign-born and a woman, was not welcomed by the gondolier guilds (that may be an understatement) and ended up rowing her gondola privately for a hotel. Giorgia Boscolo has a more legitimate claim, however, being the daughter of a Venetian gondolier herself. We’ll see how it works out…
Finally, there are new sets of photos posted here, here, and here.
