Festival Mediterranea offers pathos and infantile charm

The lunchtime concert presented to the Gozitan public by the Italian Embassy on Saturday, October 24, 2009, widened the breath of  this year's Festival Mediterranea with music that, to my knowledge, features only rarely on the local scene.  It ranged from Garcia Lorca's painful pathos to the later Gioacchino Rossini's infantile nonsense.  A musical Trio made up of Laura Armani (soprano), Paolo Marcante (clarinet) and Anna Tamiozzo (piano) offered the audience that attended at the Aula Mgr G. Farrugia an hour of unalloyed pleasure. 

The programme included compositions by A. Albeniz, G. Lorca, H. Sagisous, E. Satie, G. Donizetti, G. Mutto, S. d'Esposito, E. Granados, F.D. Marchetti, G. Rossini, Tagliaferri-Valente -Bosio. 

 The concert began with Paolo Marcante playing "Chant d'amour" for clarinet and piano. Mr Marcante came out as a fine clarinettist, artful but unaffected, exciting as a soloist and steady and accommodating in team.  Together with Anna Tamiozzo at the pianoforte, with whom he also gave a "Concertino per clarinetto and pianoforte", he performed in all the numbers of the concert.  Ms Tamiozzo was no less reliable, sensitive and balanced in her accompaniment of the soloists, the finest star of whom was of course soprano Laura Armani.

Ms Armani's "soprano" is a voice that is difficult to describe other than by spelling out the emotions that it roused in the audience.  I was part of the audience and at times the mood in the hall was almost one of awe.  Her powerful, darkish, almost sensuous voice seemed to be have been made for G. Lorca's tragic poetry and compostion.  She sang "Las morillas de Jaen" with the passion of a survival from the Spanish civil war of which Lorca is perhaps the most renowned victim.  With no less appropriate verve she sang other songs by Lorca as well as compositions by Satie, Granados and d'Esposito, concluding the concert with Rossini's "La chanson du bébé" which she performed with infectious fun and contagious charm.

D'Esposito's "Anema e core" introduced a welcome dash of Napoli; G. Mutto's "Parlo al tango" was fun, and H. Sagisous's "Vierge Marie" led us into a prayer that the Trio performed with devotion. 

The concert was attended by a highly appreciative audience that filled most of the Aula Mgr Farrugia. It certainly deserved a larger one spilling into the St Michael's Hall, and it would have had it had the concert been held in the evening.  Unfortunately - as I was told - it came late in the day for the organizers of Festival Mediterranea who nonetheless were keen to collaborate with the Embassy of Italy in the 9th Week of the Italian Language in the World.  The lunchtime slot was a good idea and it is a slot that I am happy not to have missed.

As a postscript I must say that it was a pleasant surprise for me to meet the members of the Trio together with their guide from the Italian Embassy, after the Saturday Mass that I celebrated in the evening at St George's basilica.  I did recall then that Ms Tamiozzo, who performed at the piano, is the official organist at her parish church at Vicenza, Italy.

Joseph Farrugia

25.10.2009 | Photos: Joe Attard