SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL  REPORT

The Opening of Italy's 45th Pontino Music Festival 2009 : Jack Buckley reports from Sermoneta  and Fossanova 27 and 28. 6.2009 (JB)

Mendelssohn: Fabrizio Von Arx (violin), Young Janacek Philharmonic, Jan Latham-Koenig (conductor). Courtyard of the Caetani Castle, Sermoneta. 27. 6.2009

Hebrides Overture ; Violin Concerto Op 64 in E minor; Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream Op 61

Haydn, Saint-Saëns and Mendlessohn, Trio of Milan– Mariana Sirbu (violin), Rocco Filippini (cello) and Bruno Canino (piano). Restored Antique Infirmary, Fossanova Abbey 28. 6.2009

Haydn, Trio in B flat HOB XV20
Saint-Saens, Trio in F no1 Op 18
Mendelssohn, Canino, Trio in C minor no2 Op66.


We are forty something miles south of Rome. When Mussolini drained the Pontine marshes he pretty well eradicated the malaria, but not the mosquitoes; he had the good sense to call in construction engineers from the Venice region who were used to building on bogs (just see how many of them stayed if you read the Venetian names in today’s Latina telephone directory) and so constructed that modern, thriving city. When Augustus Hare made what was the expedition to Sermoneta in the early twentieth century, he wore an anti-malaria mask. Nowadays, leave your anti-malaria mask at home, but first pack your mosquito repellent. Centuries before the Duce got to work, malaria had carried off the villagers of Ninfa, so the place was abandoned, with churches and other ancient buildings falling into the ground. But the ruins were well watered with a rivulet running through the place and spectacular wild flowers taking root, then growing over the old stones. That is how the last Princess Caetani (Lelia, by name) found it in the early twentieth century. An enthusiastic botanist, she began collecting exotic plants from every corner of the earth, to discover they thrived in the rich soil: a perfect combination of woman and nature producing one of the world’s most beautiful extended gardens. Early summer is a good time to visit when the infinite number of roses are in bloom. The area now produces some of the country’s best fruit and vegetables, an extremely agreeable wine and greatly valued olive oil. Rising steeply behind Ninfa is the mediaeval walled city of Sermoneta, crowned by the Caetani castle. And so is the stage set for the forty-fifth Festival Pontino di Musica.

Youth has always been centre stage in the programming and so it was that the opening concert, dedicated to Mendelssohn, was given on Saturday 27 June in the castle courtyard by the Young Janacek Philharmonic, under its founder and conductor, Jan Latham-Koenig. This conductor has sometimes been criticized for his fast tempi, but on this occasion The Hebrides Overture a little too much resembled the mood of Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage . In the open air, some of the phrases faded before they reached their end and three cellos proved insufficient to sustain the lyricism.

Mendelssohn was seventeen when he composed the Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a number of the members of this orchestra are close to that age. Do they empathise with this music? Well, yes and no. The fluttering of the fairies’ wings twice escaped the technical prowess of some of the strings, but Latham-Koenig had the presence of mind to rescue this near-mishap, and deliver it as part of the composer’s humour. The best way to deliver Mendelssohn’s musical jokes (and there are a lot of them) is deadpan and no one better than Latham-Koenig to take charge of this. The feel-good factor was well attended to. The brass players deserved their ovation.

We have heard Mendelssohn’s E minor violin concerto so many times, it has become something of a cliché. But there is nothing clichéish when it is under the fingers of thirty year old Fabrizio Von Arx. Those string players who say that the Mediterranean Sound is no longer about should come to hear him and eat their words. Born and brought up in Naples in a Neapolitan-Swiss family, he feels he owes his greatest debt to his first teacher, Giovanni Leone, who saw him win the prestigious Vittorio Veneto Prize at the age of ten. Later, he would also study with that other great Neapolitan, Salvatore Accardo and most significantly with Franco Gulli. Gulli famously kept the Tartini school of playing alive with its discreet use of vibrato. It is a truism of today’s violinists, not so much that they use vibrato, as vibrato uses them: its over-application often swamps the music.

Von Arx’s playing is informed by the most god-given musical sensibility. In the opening phrase of the concerto, he audibly brings out the Neapolitan sun. I was expecting him to be daringly kittenish in the cadenza. But no. He increases the tension here and has the audience reaching for safety belts. He has lots of musical surprises up his sleeve. Most importantly, he is a total master of his vibrato, colouring a note here, shaping a phrase there, surprisingly absent when you might be expecting it, but always so arrestingly musical you are made to feel that you are hearing this familiar music for the first time. It is not that Von Arx is going to be one of today’s greatest violinists. He is that now.

The Sunday (28 June) concert took place in the exquisitely restored old infirmary of the Fossanova Abbey. This restoration was the work of Architect Riccardo Cerocchi, who is the President and guiding spirit of the Pontino Festival. The Trio of Milan (Mariana Sirbu (violin), Rocco Filippini (cello) and Bruno Canino (piano) played works by Haydn, Saint-Saëns and Mendelssohn.

It pains me to report that these three excellent soloists do not make up an ideal trio. Canino dominates the group and pounds the keys as though his life depends on it, with accents thrown in which are not indicated in the scores and which flash through the music like lightening, disrupting the music’s flow. There were more subtle contributions from Sirbu and Filippini, when these were not drowned out by the piano. Canino’s contribution worked best in the Mendelssohn, where the composer appeared to be calling for some piano foregrounding.

As an encore they played the final movement of Haydn’s G major trio, known as the gypsy rondo. Close on half a century ago I had just left music college and found myself playing this trio with David Martin (violin) and his wife, Florence Hooton (cello). David and Florence were of my parents’ generation and so wiser and with vastly more experience. In the gypsy rondo, the piano sets the pace. I remember asking David how fast Haydn’s presto should be. As fast as you dare, came his reply, without any hint of a smile. The smile was now on my face. I realized that David was telling me that by taking this speed risk I could well commit musical suicide; but by not taking the risk, I would not deliver Haydn’s musical sense. The prim, measured, school -marmish delivery of the Trio of Milan left Haydn’s wit out in the cold. I saw David’s benign smile from somewhere in the heavens above.

Note for Travellers to Italy: The Pontino Festival runs until 28 July. Full programme at www.campusmusica.it There is a regular train service from Rome Central Station (Stazione Termini) to Latina Scala, from which there is a bus service up the hill side for the remaining 12 kilometres, except on Sunday, when there are taxis. The stop for for Fossanova is further down the rail line.

Jack Buckley

Jack Buckley, who trained in music, has lived in Rome for forty years, where he is Visiting Professor of English Studies in the Faculty of Philosophy at La Sapienza.

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