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Looking back: behind the scenes at 'Music in Bologna' – by Lizzie Watson
In 2012, I was on holiday in Bologna with two close friends and colleagues. One of the lovely things about working at MRT is that you are surrounded by people who are just as happy seeking out medieval church complexes or one of the world’s earliest anatomical theatres while on holiday as they are lying on a beach.
During our visit to the Archiginnasio (in which the theatre is found), we saw a sign saying ‘Rossini Stabat Mater hall, open by appointment only’ in Italian, which we all took as a challenge to find the relevant person to open it up for us. We found that it was the room in which the Italian première of Rossini’s Stabat Mater took place in 1842. The cornerstone of all Martin Randall Festivals is the union of music and place, and premières are a particular draw as, being well documented, they provide an indelible link between the two. The recreation of a première can be a short-cut to a different era, where the eyes as well as the ears can transport you.
This discovery sparked a chain of questions which are always explored when putting together one of our festivals – most importantly, what sort of musical connections can we find in Bologna? As it turned out, the city has an incredibly rich musical history, predominantly in the teaching of composition, which meant that key figures such as Padre Martini (who taught Mozart and J.C. Bach) and institutions such as the Accademia Filarmonica (alumni include Verdi and Puccini) and the Liceo Musicale (at which Rossini taught) provided an ample springboard for programming and artistic direction.
One of the biggest obstacles with putting together a new festival is not finding spectacular venues in our chosen location, but persuading the owners to let us hold a concert there. Once we have convinced them, and particularly once we have held our exceptional concerts and brought a respectful and interested audience, the path is often much smoother for future requests. The first steps are always the hardest, though. We often struggle to explain exactly what we do for the simple reason that no one else does it – there isn’t a model to use as an example – and, in the case of our European festivals, we are trying to negotiate all of this in a foreign language.
These are not public concerts, we don’t sell tickets, they are part of a larger festival with top international musicians for a private audience of stranieri (foreigners), who come for the entire six or seven days and have accommodation, transport, meals etc. organised for them. It would be much easier if we were organising conferences. What often clinches at least the beginnings of consent is our emphatic assertion of matching appropriate music to the venue (particularly important in churches, for example). The fact that we have held concerts in world-famous venues such as the Basilica di San Marco in Venice with world-famous artists also definitely helps.
I was reminded of some of the difficulties we faced for the first 2014 festival when I returned in 2018 for its second edition. The Basilica di San Petronio is wonderfully contradictory in a way that exemplifies the Bolognese personality – it isn’t the cathedral (which is a relatively dull building nearby), but sits in the middle of the main piazza, and is very much the religious heart of the city. It felt important to have a concert there, but churches can be very resistant; they are public buildings (for our private concert), are not motivated by charging a fee like many private institutions, and can be prone to monk-like levels of taciturnity (I can count on one hand the number of priests who both have an email address and check it more than once a year).
Fortunately, we found two connections that gained us access. The organist for the ensemble Odhecaton, with whom we have worked often in Italy, is also the organist for San Petronio; also, we discovered that Charles V was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in San Petronio in 1530, and that Odhecaton could recreate the Incoronation Mass by Gombert for us. Our concert was permitted and the date agreed. Or so we believed until we returned on one of several preparatory visits to Bologna, this one mere months before the festival was due to take place. To our horror, a grumpy priest slowly turned pages of the huge church diary to the date of our concert… where nothing was written, despite multiple emails and phone calls confirming it. Watching over him, we insisted that he swap his pencil for a biro, putting in ink our critical and significant appointment.
Lizzie Watson, Artistic Director
Music along the Danube - A musical voyage through Habsburg heartland via Europe’s most sublime waterway
Eight private concerts in appropriate historic buildings, world-class artists, illuminating talks, and a daily diet of beautiful landscape and picturesque streets. A singularly beguiling... Read more
stdClass Object ( [name] => Music along the Danube [code] => 8609 [slug] => music-along-the-danube [introduction] => Eight private concerts in appropriate historic buildings, world-class artists, illuminating talks, and a daily diet of beautiful landscape and picturesque streets. A singularly beguiling combination of music and place: some the most beautiful locations in the Danube valley are also where some of the greatest composers of the Western classical tradition lived or worked. Haydn symphonies in the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt, where he worked for most of his life; Mozart string quartets in a tiny jewel of a venue in Grein, Austria’s oldest working theatre (1791), and Kristian Bezuidenhout performs works for fortepiano in the magnificent Klosterneuburg Abbey. Sublime soprano Carolyn Sampson presents Schubert songs in a countryside hunting lodge, and renowned pianist Imogen Cooper plays his lyrical Impromptus in the majestic palace of the Habsburg emperors, Vienna’s Hofburg. In Bratislava the superb Smetana Trio introduces a Czech flavour to our journey through the former Habsburg Empire, and in Linz the Wigmore Soloists perform Beethoven’s elegant and deservedly popular Septet as our grand finale. Accommodation throughout on a first-class river cruiser, which sails from Passau to Bratislava and back, through some of the most enchanting riverine landscape in Europe. Daily talks by leading music expert Dr Paul Max Edlin. [description] =>Eight private concerts in appropriate historic buildings, world-class artists, illuminating talks, a daily diet of beautiful landscape and picturesque streets, the comfort and convenience of a first-class river cruiser: this iteration of Music Along the Danube follows the winning formula that we first launched in 1994.
The key feature is the singularly beguiling combination of music and place. Concerts take place in buildings that are among the most beautiful in the Danube valley – palaces, churches, monasteries and country houses. But the value of the juxtaposition goes deeper: the buildings are often of the same period as the music, and in some cases there are potent historical associations between the two.
Some of the greatest composers of the Western classical tradition were either Austrian or made their home in Vienna. Music and place align here in such a rich and varied way, and at the festival’s core are some of the most beautiful and beloved works by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven.
We hear Haydn symphonies in the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt, where he worked for most of his life; Mozart string quartets in the tiny jewel of a theatre in Grein, Austria’s oldest working theatre (1791), and Kristian Bezuidenhout performs works for fortepiano in the handsome Augustinus Hall of Klosterneuburg Abbey.
Sublime soprano Carolyn Sampson presents Schubert songs in a countryside hunting lodge, and renowned pianist Imogen Cooper plays his lyrical Impromptus in the majestic palace of the Habsburg emperors, Vienna’s Hofburg.
In Bratislava the superb Smetana Trio introduces a Czech flavour to our journey through the former Habsburg Empire, and in Linz the Wigmore Soloists perform Beethoven’s elegant and deservedly popular Septet as part of our grand finale.
The MS Amadeus Imperial serves as our floating hotel throughout, eliminating the need for hotel changes or long drives between venues. There is no onboard entertainment, no assigned seating, minimal announcements – and absolutely no piped music.
All performances are private, being exclusive to the participants who take the festival package, which leads to an intimacy that engenders a rare intensity of musical communication, and a proximity to world-class musicians which is rare and wonderful. Combine this with daily talks by music expert Dr Paul Max Edlin and an itinerary which takes us through some of the most enchanting riverine landscape in Europe, and this really is an unmissable experience.
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