CONSOLATION
"The years will bring me Who knows what other horrors, but I felt you near me, you would have consoled me..." from 'Day by day' by G.Ungaretti
Consolations
Franz Liszt has always embodied the figure of the pianist-virtuoso par excellence in the collective imagination.
It was in the early Weimar years, in 1849 to be exact, that the final version of the Consolations, six pensées poétiques was written, later published in 1850 by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig and by the Bureau Central de Musique in Paris.
The title Consolations probably refers to the collection of poems of the same name by the Frenchman Joseph Delorme, pseudonym of Charles Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), published in 1830.
From a musical point of view, however, these short pieces with their languidly sentimental tone seem to clearly refer to the model of Mendelssohn’s Romanza senza parole.
Maestro Daniel Barenboim performs Consolation no. 3 in this audio
Playing
ALD: “So the strength… where I found the strength… first of all from my friends”
B: [In my spare time I see] “my friends and… precisely I play football on Saturdays.”
EPO: [What gives me comfort is] “every Friday from 9 to 12 I go out a bit to play some football.”
HC: “I don’t like to stay at home, I’m always outside […] around 5 o’clock I go outside again to play football with friends -simply, or alone, to spend time outside.”
Movies
MARINO MARZARI, was 10 years old when his life was shattered by the massacres of Monte Sole by the 16th SS Grenadier Armoured Division.
On our return to Sibano (Marzabotto), we found the same misery.
For this reason, my parents agreed to send me as a guest to a family in Bologna, Veronesi Ernesto and Marani Erminia, who lived in Via Battindarno.
I stayed with them for about six months and attended the fourth grade at the Albertazzi school.
I had a great time with this family, I was so serene that I stopped swearing.
They were used to take me to the ‘Marconi’ Cinema, I remember the excitement when I watch the movie ‘Tarzan’s Son’.
The School
ALD: “Having the opportunity to study all that stuff also gave me some strength.
Even seeing those people who were beaten or hurt, that they still keep going, that also gave me the strength to never give up, to keep going.
All considered, I was well”.
Bem: ‘The moment of studying was a good moment for me despite the fatigue, but it was good because I knew I was doing something and learning.
And then to get on with the work, consider that I always…. Every year I go on…
It’s true that it’s too much responsibility, all the white hair has arrived.
But I always say that it’s good not to stay at the same level, because if you stay… It’s good to have ambitions”.
The Sun
The Monte Sole massacres of 1944 forced 15-year-old Lina Ventura and her family to be displaced.
After a few days, they took us to the Refugee Camp in Florence and we were parked in a dormitory on Via Della Scala right in the courtyard where the refugees arrived and departed.
The courtyard was the sunniest place, so it had become a meeting point for the refugees.
And so it was for us too.
The Prayer
Cristina, my dear,
I am moved to tears thinking about my last meeting with Cornelia…
We went on the occasion of her birthday… we spoke of course about the events of Monte Sole…
When we were saying goodbye, I said to her: “Let’s say a prayer… but how do you pray, Cornelia?”
And she simply said to me: ‘Ah, when I’m in bed at night I go overthere, I go into the Church of Casaglia and I say a Hail Mary in honour of all the Madonnas and then I pray to St Antony because my mother was very devoted to St Antony of Padua; and then I go to the cemetery [of Casaglia] and I say an Eterno Riposo.
And so we recited it and then she told me: ‘You know, I have to tell you that it’s better to forgive… let’s say a Hail Mary’.
And so we said goodbye.
Cristina, this is my memory.
I embrace you
Adele
The Music
Music has a great power: it brings you back at the same time as it brings you forward, so that you feel, simultaneously, nostalgia and hope.
from ‘High Fidelity’ by Nick Hornby