August 31,
still in Rome, the best
laid plans…
‘La
musica è il lavoro più pericoloso al mondo.’* (GeGé Telesforo)
*“Music is the most dangerous
job in the world.”
When I got
to the airport this morning shortly before 9, a message awaited me indicating
that my flight from Rome to London, London to LAX had been cancelled and that
British Airways had booked me on another flight for tomorrow morning. No
explanation. I do know that there are flights plans being changed due to
incoming hurricane Dorian, and that many flights have been cancelled out of
Hong Kong due to the protests ongoing there, but I have no idea if either of
those have anything to do with it, or if this is a simple case of overbooking.
Luckily Mario, who had driven me to the airport, was still nearby and came
right back to fetch me. I was musing on how fortunate I am; what about someone
who didn’t have a monastery nearby to house and feed them but might be instead
stuck overnight in a foreign country not speaking the language. So here I am
back at San Gregorio after pranzo with the brothers and a great
thunderstorm with hail, with a few extra hours. Non c’è problema. I can throw down a few more lines
about the Zipoli conference.
As I said, I thought that my
presentation did set a good tone for what was to come. On the other hand, if I
had actually known what was to come I might have very intimidated. With no
false humility, I feel as if I was the least qualified of all the presenters.
The first up after me was Chiara Bertoglio, who is both a concert pianist and a
theologian. If it’s any indication, my biographical blurb was about a half a
page, two paragraphs taken from my old website. Hers was a full two and a half
pages long, listing every place she performed and every orchestra she had
performed with, every article she had written, and every degree she had
achieved, including a Level II Masters Degree in the History of Theological
Thought from Sant’Anselmo, the Benedictine University in Rome, and another in
systematic theology from the University of Nottingham in England. She spoke on
“Polyphony, Harmony and Communion: from the Song of the Trinity to Human
Society.” I do not remember the other two of three pieces she performed during
her talk and at the end, but she amazed us in the middle with a performance of
Brahms’ piano transcription of Bach’s Chaconne in Dm for violin, which is
performed all on the left hand. She introduced it with a full exegesis of the
deep spiritual significance of the piece aside from the musical wonder of it.
Brahms said that on one stave Bach had written a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most
powerful feelings. “If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the
piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering
experience would have driven me out of my mind.”
That evening
then we had a very unique performance of solo music for contrabasso, what
we usually refer to as an upright bass, by a woman from Rome named Federica
Michisanti. She entitled the performance “Music as a Search for Unity.” The
music struck me as rather aleatoric and usually classified as jazz, though it
is through composed and performed with a trio. She sat on the steps of the
sanctuary and spoke very informally in between pieces about music as a search
for one’s own true self, and one’s own “voice” in the broadest sense of the
word. A lovely lady, and I had a nice conversation with her the next morning at
breakfast.
The
highlight of the evening though was in the venue again: this was the church of
San Cataldo, one of the places also recommended to me to see. It has only been
accessible to the public in recent years because it is the main church of the Cavelieri di
Gerusalemme, otherwise known as “The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre
of Jerusalem” founded in 1099, one of the knightly orders founded to protect
pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land, especially during the re-conquest of
Jerusalem at the time of the 1st Crusade. There were indeed flags with the Jerusalem cross on
them scattered around the church still. It was interesting to think that at a
time when Muslims and Christians were living peaceably together in Palermo,
various pilgrims and their protector knights were also crossing through on
their way to defend against Muslims in the Holy Land. What would those
conversations have been like? It was a 12th century church in that same fascinating Arab-Norman style,
very austere inside, its most notable elements being the three cuppolas that
are visible from all over the city and its marble floor with inlaid mosaics,
which the guide says is “an extraordinary example of Arabic decorative art used
in a Christian context.” (It too is one of the UNESCO protected sites.)
And we were
just getting started: that was the first day! All that plus three liturgies!
We had the
use of a fantastic place called the Palazzo Branciforte for several events,
thanks to a good relationship with the comune of Palermo who also co-sponsored some
of the events. Among other things, the palazzo houses an archeological museum, a library,
a concert hall, and a fine (air-conditioned) auditorium. The first talk of the
morning was there, offered by a musicologist named Cinzia Merletti who spoke on
“Cosmology and Spirituality in the Music of the Mare Nostrum,”
that is, the Mediterranean Sea. She is also a percussionist and an expert in
the music of the Mideast. There were some instruments but she did not perform.
She spoke instead quite a bit about the theory and spirituality behind Islamic
music, specifically that of Iran and North Africa.
Dr. Merletti
set us up for a wonderful performance that afternoon by the Pejman Tadayon
Ensemble entitled “Sufi Mysticism, Dance and Poetry.” Pejman himself is Iranian
but now lives in Rome; and the rest of his ensemble––eight singers and
instrumentalists plus two dancers and a woman who recited poetry, mostly of
Rumi––are Italians. I love this music anyway, but a few things were especially
cool about this ensemble. First there was a viola da gamba, a
six-stringed Renaissance bowed instrument that I think of (perhaps
superficially) as the grandfather of the ‘cello. I love the sound of this
instrument, and have several recording of the music Jean Marais, but I had
never heard it live. There was also someone playing the duduk, an ancient
Armenian woodwind instrument whose sensuous sound still echoes in my memory as
I write. In addition the percussionist was almost (almost) of John
Pennington class, had many of the same Mideastern drums the John uses and was
the only other person I have ever experienced performing with a riqq, the
Egyptian drum that looks like a tambourine but is played largely on the drum
head and by manipulating the pairs of cymbals. I went up afterward to
compliment him and his eyes lit up that I knew what a riqq was and where it was from. (Thanks,
JP!) They also featured two whirling dervish dancers, a man and woman. This all
took place in a cavernous old Jesuit church that suddenly came to life with
their presence. At one point Pejman stated unequivocally that he was sure there
had been sufis in Palermo during the Arabic reign. I’d sure like to think so.
And then
that evening there was a talk called “Sound and Development of Music Between
Spirit and Culture,” by Michele Campanella. I had no idea who he was, but when
I got back to Rome and showed the booklet to one of our monks, he raised his
eyebrows and said, “He is one of the best known classical pianists in Italy.”
He also performed a piece of Mozart, most of Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata, and
a piece of Liszt, who is his speciality. It was very embarrassing though: I
could not stay awake through this presentation. It was very warm in the church
we were in, it had been a long day and I had not been sleeping well, and I was
just miserable, made more so trying to stay awake and not let myself be seen
nodding off and falling out of my chair. I slipped out early and apologized to
the maestro––and he was indeed always referred to as Maestro Campanella––the
next day at Mass. He was not offended. After such refined music, I was actually
little uncomfortable when he appeared at Mass the next day, with me leading the
students in the few simple chants I had taught them for the Eucharist liturgy
(he had the night before criticized some of the new liturgical music he had
heard), but he was very gracious and friendly, and told me how much he liked my
voice. Sometimes Caesar nods.
The next
presentation, Saturday morning, was by far my favorite, and also was the one
that made me understand what a genius job Eraldo and Fausto had done in putting
this conference together, ensuring that the students got a full range of
musical experience.
It first of
all took place in a little cave-like building called the Art Tatum Jazz Club,
around the corner from the Jesuit residence, that still smelled like last night’s
sweat and beer. It was led by a well-known jazz singer named GeGé Telesforo,
who is also a drummer and a well-known TV and radio producer. (At one point he
casually mentioned his work on a certain show for RAI, and the student who was
asking him the question at the time was just stunned.) To my disappointment, he
did not sing, but sat in the stage area, lit up as if he was performing while
we sat around at little cocktail tables and on bar stools and talked about what
music means to him. No, I take that back: he talked about what music
means––period. While he spoke I kept thinking about something I heard Dylan say
once, that every time you go on stage you take your life in your hands. He
spoke with unmannered passion and authority about the importance of
self-discipline (because you may not get any support from your family if you
decide to follow a career in music), about respect for your craft, about the
importance of always doing everything in your power to put on a great
performance.
I was
writing furiously trying to keep up with him he was so eminently quotable. He
comes to LA once a year to teach vocal technique at a school in Venice Beach
and loves Americans’ way of getting things done. He told how one of his mentors
there in LA stood before a group of music students and said to them, “Out there
right now there are 500 musicians better looking than you, better than you, and
more motivated than you. E voi, cosa volete
fare?! And you, what do you
want to do?!” At one point he was critiquing pop music and said, “Standing in
the middle of pool with a gold chain around your neck surrounded by girls who
are touching their culo and twerking isn’t music! That’s
cinema!” He also spoke about the importance of having your own recognizable
sound, and left the kids with his five senses of music: 1) A sense of rhythm;
2) a sense of form and structure; 3) a sense of melody and harmony; 4) a sense
of interpretation; 5) l’ultimo ma non il
meno–last but not least, a sense of the show––respect for your audience,
yourself, your colleagues. I thought he was marvelous and I told him so. Fausto
urged him to come to New Camaldoli if he can when he is in California. He
reminded me of Francine Reed and Andy Gonzales and the musicians I used to love
to hang out with back in Phoenix, topnotch performers who just loved doing what
they do.
One last
quote from GeGè, maybe the last thing I heard him say, when one of the kids
asked him what he thought the purpose of being a musician was. I have waited
for years for someone to say this for me, when the world is in such need of
doctors and clean water and environmentalists and food, and it can feel as if
making music is just a waste of time. No: “We are ambassadors,” he said, “we’re the
messengers.” And he added, “Ignorant people are not stupid; they just don’t
know” and they won’t unless we tell them.
That gave me such consolation, I can’t tell you. People can read
all about events in the newspaper or online; they can hear about important
issues on TV or the radio; they can read about interreligious dialogue in
textbooks. But when we sing about it––or better yet, when we sing it––it gets in in
another way. We’re ambassadors. We’re the messengers.
