Sounds of mountains at Trentino Music Fest

Baltic waves among Alps

TBy Cezary Owerkowicz

he scorching heat in the country gives rise to many topics and one the hot topics is people leaving for cooler places. Those who are able and lucky enough leave the rest behind to carry out the daily chores. But the problem is choosing the destination.

Well it depends on taste or preference (I wouldn’t offer a prize). There are people who prefer the seashores or mountains, staying put or travelling and sight-seeing, enjoying urban holidays or the nature more or less wild.

I love all — the sea and the mountains and I love to travel, go sight-seeing and also urban areas and nature... well, music too. Speaking of music I will introduce you to an excursion to the mountains on the wings of music.

From sunrise at the peak of Col di Margherita in the valley of Val di Fassa you can listen to the ‘Sound of the Dolomites’. After taking the touristic route and after reaching the place of the event the audience enjoys the music in front of Pale di San Martino.

Between the Alpine peaks (the Dolomites are the lovely part of the Alps) at sunrise and during the day ring you hear the ‘Sounds of the Dolomites’, the only such event in the world. You can walk with music stars (carrying sometimes their instruments on shoulders) taking the touristic routes to the natural amphitheatres created by nature, to the lakes or simple mountaineers cottages, where the unforgettable concerts are held. Admiring the ensembles or virtuosos of piano in the high mountains is an exceptional pleasure. The emotions run high complete with museums of masterpieces, castles or historical routes.

This unique festival runs continuously for the past 23 years. It is called the Trentino Festival. The name is derived from an autonomous Italian province, whose historical capital is Trent (Italian, Trento).

Owerkowicz

Culture

The music and mountains, the culture and the exceptional views and the Italian cello virtuoso Mario Brunello calls it ‘Music in the Heavens’. This year the event will start on July 7 and end on August 31. On inauguration day on July 7 twelve leading cellists of the Berliner Philharmonic will climb to the shelter-house Fuciade (1,982 meters high) to start on 48 strings to sing songs of nature beauty.

The Italian virtuoso Mario Brunello, called ‘A Conjurer of Cello’ and constant guest of the festival says the event should be named ‘Music in the Heavens’. He plays at concert halls, open-air, in the deserts and in Trentino Mountains. ‘When I am in Dolomites I have a feeling that I am in front of several roads leading to the heavens. It is fascinating: open space to discover; you have to sink in it to find really the place looking alike.’

‘What is the link between music and silence of the mountains? The fruit of that link is ‘a vertical silence’, a silence not leaving a human lonely, because it leads to the certain destination, the peak of the mountain. It is not necessary to reach it yourself. Every place there gives us a chance to discover that unique sort of silence,’ says the magic of music.

He plays on cello made in 1700 by ancient Master Maggini from wood imported from nearby Panaveggio. ‘Full of harmony spruces Panaveggio have such rare privilege that they are grown in undisturbed calm, and its noble structure is ideally suitable for making instruments such as the violins, violas or cellos.

I know from experience that every tree from this region is unique and allows producing a unique instrument on its kind sound,’ says the artist who is in love with both — Sounds and Dolomites.

Only two days later the 14 years old, already a star of jazz from Indonesia, Joey Alexander, who performed in front of (former) President Barak Obama will sit near the piano just on the mountain pass Lavaze. From there you have the possibilities to admire massifs of Catinaccio (not famous Italian soccer ‘catenaccio’! it means: bolt, bar) and Latemar.

Orchestra

Mario will perform on his magic cello for seven days from July 17 to July 23 with an excellent orchestra Kremerata Baltica. The name orchestra takes from its founder, the fantastic Latvian violinist and conductor, Gidon Kremer, who primarily completed his ensemble from musicians of Baltic countries for whom a special part of the festival is booked in Madonna de Campiglio, called ‘Brenta Special Week’.

For the lovers of fusion jazz and to give them great satisfaction there is a performance by the winner of twenty-two Grammy Awards, the famous pianist Chick Corea who will play with the banjo-virtuoso Bela Fleck. They will play at the 19th century Villa Welsperg in Primiero.

The rich offer of the Trentino summer festival is not limited to pure music only. It includes important museums as Mart or Muse, the glory of the remains of Roman Emporium, medieval castles, Habsburg fortresses and routes of historical wars less than 30 kilometers from Trento.

Italy was fractioned a long time ago and as a result Trentino was reunited with it as the last province just after WW I and paid a high price for it. The frontline was 350 km long and it is seen until today: trenches, fortifications, eighty Austro-Hungary forts that create the historical routes, routes to national unity. Route from Rovereto to mountain pass Paradiso (2.573 m.) where there is a deep tunnel with multimedia exhibition ‘Sounds and Voices of The War in the Mountains’. The exhibition calls for the need for peace as the huge ‘Bell of the Peace’ in Roveto cast from the old shells.

In Trentino the beauty of the forests, masterpiece of the nature harmonizes perfectly with masterpieces of human, discretely encrusted landscape but without any disturbance for our ‘mother - nature’ (rather like ‘interpretation of the nature’). First the ‘plant gallery’, which since 30 years has already and always changed under the impression of elements and passing time, is Arte Sella in Val de Sella.

Around the impressive ‘plantcathedral’ created by Giuliano Mauri there is a place for various art experiments - musical, ballet or theatrical. Its competitors are ‘galeries’ Bosco Arte Sella in Val Giudicarie and Respirart under Alpe di Pampeago, one of the world’s highest parks of art (2,000 m). The author Marco Nones invites us for meditation and observation of pieces of art changing under the pressure of nature as sun, snow and so on.

In elegant Rovereto (less than 30 km from Trento) the Mart museum is one of the most important Italian museums of modern art with twenty-two thousand masterpieces from futurism to Artepovera.

In Rovereto there is also the ‘Mozart’s Week’ in mid-September, like ‘encore’ of the Trentino Festival. In contrast there are historical places after the Roman Emporium’ - 1,700 sq.m. of streets and shops under the surface of the Trento.

Of course, plenty of paintings: except plenty of museums and galleries the amazing cycle of frescos from the fourteenth century on Castello del Buonoconsiglio and multimedia museums of The Mountaineers and ethnographic centre of their culture and tradition.

The classical music from Baroque to contemporary masters, jazz, ethnic melodies, pop, and folk - the heritage of human art rounded by heritage of nature recognized as a treasure of humanity by UNESCO just one step from the heavens. Difficult not to be delighted... Maybe even — happy!?

Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by well-known musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His email address is: cowerkowicz @ yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@ hotmail.com