2007

The Notturni al castello Association presents the first edition of its  International Music Festival.
This year the theme is the nightingale, symbolising memories and nostalgia for other times.
The nightingale has been a source of inspiration for numerous poets, painters and musicians since ancient times: one need only recall the fleeting night-time meetings of Romeo and Juliet accompanied by the song of the nightingale (night and love) and the lark (day and separation).   There are also many paintings of young women enthralled by his sweet song.
The sessions will illustrate the origins of the nightingale myth and its transformation over the course of the centuries from a symbol of tragedy to a heart-rending expression of desire and melancholy regret.
In planning the concerts we have chosen music capable of evoking strongly nostalgic associations: in Schubert’s Lieder, for example, simple poetic imagery expresses universal human emotions such as loneliness and the urge to merge with infinity; in the French School, the seductive notes suggest memories of lost times and of existential tedium,  whilst we  finish with the intense and introspective melancholy of Piazzolla’s Tango and the memories evoked by the images within film scores of postwar Italy.

 

Juliet: "Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear,
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree,
Believe my love, it was the nightingale".
(William Shakespeare)

"Guarda che bianca luna, guarda che notte azzurra,
un aura non sussurra, non tremola uno stel.
L'usignoletto solo và dalla siepe all'orno,
e sospirando intorno chiama la sua fedel".
(Pietro Metastasio)

"Le rossignol qui du haut d'une
branche se regarde dedans, croit
être tombé dans la rivière. Il est
au sommet d'une chêne et toute fois
il a peur de se noyer".
(Cyrano de Bergerac)