Muti: "Save Italy's Small Municipal Bands". And, Il Maestro Hails Totò's Musical Genius

Those who know Riccardo Muti well (Muti who just came down with the flu and bowed out of tonight's concert with the NY Phil, replaced in extremis by Michael Christie) also know that, as difficult and punctilious as he can be, the Maestro, is also a very un-snobbish generous supporter of smalltown municipal bands; he's also a film lover and a comedy fan, also has a very keen -- if often downright earthy -- sense of humor.

He demonstrates both things today in Corriere della Sera, where, in a huge full-page interview, he throws his weight behind the effort to release much-needed additional funding for Italy's small, beautiful municipal bands, little orchestras made up of amateurs and/or semipros that constitute a historic part of Italy's musical legacy.

Muti explains how "they are the only chance, in places that are too small and remote to support an actual opera house or symphony hall, to enjoy the masterpieces of classical music".  The sometimes cranky maestro explains how he likes to follow, whenever he can, performances of such small municipal bands -- he's a honorary citizen of a small Lombardy town where he often goes to listen to the local band -- and gives great props to the kids of one of his favorite bands, Banda di Delianuova: "A wonderful brass section, kids with extraordinary artistic and human discipline: they're as refined as the graduates of the most prestigious colleges at Oxford; they have love and passion. They have dignity".

Verdi himself, the maestro explains in the interview, "owes so much to the municipal bands he used to listen to as a boy: he even gave them an hommage, for King Duncan in Macbeth". Then Muti traces other hommages to that brassy, peculiar sound: "Before Verdi, Bellini, Berlioz. Spontini in the second act of Agnese di Hohenstaufen uses a band in lieu of an organ and that is one of the most sublime moments in that masterpiece".

On June 14 at the Ravenna Festival, where orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker perform, Muti will conduct, "with pride", a municipal band from Southern Italy, Banda di Delianuova, a small town on the outskirts of Reggio Calabria, in a selection of Verdi and Bellini.

And Muti also gives a deserved shoutout to comedy film legend Totò, the Aristophanes of Italian film so shamefully ignored abroad (OC concedes that Totò's brand of comedy -- especially his fantastic puns -- is very language-based and therefore impossible to translate properly): "A great actor, a poet, the man who wrote Malafemmena. In Totò A Colori he plays a band conductor and his gesture is at the same time hilarious and spot-on, playful but so precise, he evokes the sound he is about to elicit from the band. Had he chosen to become a conductor, he would have been one of the greatest  of the 20th century. It'd be wise to play that movie clip for the students of conducting... his pizzicati, his legati, his staccati. One understands that gesture is in direct contact with sound".

Comments

[maguy]

The Brass Band is to be saved everywhere ! Reminds me of this great human and musical film about dying welsh coal-mine, Brassed off, if the pit closes the band ends ...Muti has his priorities right!

[Marshie]

Since we are talking about hilarity, poetry, gestures, sound and good music-making, listen to Cheryl Studer mock the critics via Gustav Mahler. For this listener, this is what bringing the printed page to life is all about. Besides, I've never heard the piece better characterized or sung with such gusto and sarcasm. This is what it's all about, isn't it?

Cheryl Studer sings Gustav Mahler's "Lob des hohen Verstandes":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNo7IkBqdnc

[Susan]

Where do you find these pictures????? I love the top one!

[lida kallerghi]

Dear chic lady,

it has been a pleasure to read about the maestro's latest news.Keep on, and please, translate his interview in English for all of us who appreciate his words and humor but especially his quality as a person.
Best wishes,
Lida Kallerghi,
Athens.

[Bill Philin-Ploplis]

So happy to hear that Muti is standing up for the little guy! Muti can't help it that he has standards when he has to deal with big organizations. Bless him!

[fignaz]

There must be something about comedians & conducting. Maybe it's their talent for mimicry. Someone else who would probably meet with Maestro Muti's approval along with Totò is Danny Kaye. Towards the end of his career he did alot of Pension Fund benefits for major orchestras. One catty double bass player whose orchestra will remain nameless remarked, reminiscing, to to me that Kaye was better than their Music Director at the time :-O