A project created and directed by
MARIO ANCILLOTTI

Music
ENSEMBLE NUOVO CONTRAPPUNTO

Silvia Tocchini - soprano
Elena Pratelli - mezzo-soprano
Alfio Vacanti - tenor
Francesco Facini - bass
Diego Fiorini - bass

Host & First Chef
ALBERTO BATISTI

 

 

According to Torquato Tasso, the music is “one of the ways through which the soul comes back to the heaven” or according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “it is the art of combining the sounds in a pleasant manner for the ear”. These are complementary definitions, but opposite regarding the spirit and both incomplete. It would be appropriate to say that music is the reflection of life, that means that through the sounds it tries to convey all the expressions and sensations of the experienced life. Very often the Music, that one with the capital M, allowed itself to joke and to deal with topics which are able to bring back the hearing toward pleasant sensations, immediate as the “gastronomical” ones, linked to the taste of the cooking and good eating.   Many artists engaged in this topic: not only our dear Rossini, of whom it is well-known his love for good eating, or Mozart who certainly has not a rigorous and strict standard of living, but also the great father Bach who wrote a funny and unsuspected Cantata in honor of the Coffee, a very fashionable drink already in the middle of the eighteenth century, or Telemann, who wrote several pieces named Tafelmusik which were dedicated to sumptuous lunches or dinners in the various courts and had a great success and important supporters for their edition.Next to Rossini and his En Sautè and Ouf, les Petit Pois or the Maccheroni celebrated in the opera L’Italiana in Algeri, it is also possible to find unpredictable authors like Bernstein who, with his fantastic director activity, enjoys himself setting the texts of four recipes to music, or Tchaikovsky who in his Schiaccianoci makes “poetry” with the cannoli with cream or chocolate, or also a less known Zöllner who organizes a very amusing vocal quartet in a vaguely aulic way with a Speisezettel, that means a whole menu.Therefore, it does not exist a more effective demonstration that the music and its poets are enjoyed themselves to treat all with its own typical irony and lightness, sometimes by leaving the Orfei and the Medee and their existential tragedies and by lightening their and our everyday life with gems of different inspiration, but of the same precious material: the Genius.

 

Mario Ancillotti

PROGRAM

Invitation to the banquet
Telemann, from Tafelmusik n° 2 -Trio for 2 flutes and continuo

Admiring the sumptuously decked table  - “Buon appetito!”
Mozart, from Don Giovanni – from Finale- Fifteenth Scene

“Il primo, alla buon ora- maccheroni”
Rossini, from Italiana in Algeri – Fifteenth Scene and Finale

“...E intanto si disquisisce di come è buono il sugo dei maccaroni e di come è bella la loro patria:Napoli.”
Rossini, from “Péchés de vieillesse“ Canzonetta del Cabaret “Le Lazzarone” for voice and piano

The main course “en sautè” with side dish of peas
Rossini, from “Péchés de vieillesse" - En Sautè – Ouf, les Petit Pois ! piano solo

“….la conversazione si accende, soprattutto sui cibi, sulle ricette, e ognuno dà la sua versione.....”
Zöllner, Der Speisezettel - for vocal quartet
Bernstein, La bonne cuisine – Recipes for voice and piano
Plum Pudding – Queues de Boeuf – Tavouk Guenksis – Civet à Toute Vitesse

And now the dessert, finally: cream cannoli!
Tchaikowsky – Danse des Mirlitons

At the end, somebody likes a cup of tea…
Tchaikowsky – Danse Chinoise

.…and somebody else a coffee.
Bach, Cantata del Caffè BWV 211 for voices and orchestra