When the senses guide the journey: music, taste and fashion appointments not to be missed
“Perhaps the angels, when they are busy praising God, play music by Bach, but I’m not sure; I am sure however, that when they are among themselves they play Mozart and then also the Lord finds pleasure in listening to them». Thus Karl Barth spoke of two great musicians often considered alternative. Wrongly, we can say: the imaginative words of the Swiss theologian, who lived between 1886 and 1968, distance us from a very widespread habit: dividing into factions or, worse, fans. You can love Mozart and Bach and, in the case of musical tourism, you can mix musical ingredients (classical or symphonic music concerts and opera or ballet performances) with artistic ingredients as you like, as in the best of cocktails. Sometimes we will find the perfect cocktail, attending, in the same city and on the same days, a concert by our favorite musician, perhaps with our dream orchestra conductor, and we will be able to combine it with the exhibition of the painter or sculptor we admire most . Other times we discover minor authors or librettists or opera singers and musicians and solo or group exhibitions that we would not have taken into consideration on other occasions. But they will always be experiences that surprise and enrich us.
This is the tourism linked to classical music: short trips to Italian and European cities (and beyond) where concerts or festivals are held, organized by specialized tour operators, who combine the musical part with visits to museums or exhibitions or places of particular interest such as planetariums or botanical gardens. It doesn’t seem like a rash comparison, but it’s the same scheme followed by tour operators specializing in marathons, who combine registration for races, from New York to Helsinki, from London to Jerusalem, with programs to discover the cities that host the marathons. And perhaps someone should think of similar forms of travel for every other type of music, from country to rock, from folk song to reggae.
Returning to classical music and given that we are approaching the season of Christmas concerts, you can contact the Milanese agency Il sipario musicale (www.ilsipariomusicale.com), active since 1995, which also has a Facebook page where you can find not only information on travel, but curiosities from the world of theaters and musicians. There are offers for every period of the year, which allow you to travel in Europe, from Lucerne to Helsinki, from Lucca to Naples and Palermo, but also in the United States. The most classic of the appointments is the one with the concert by the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Musikverein in Vienna (departure 29 December, return 2 January), to which the musical curtain combines a show by the Spanish Riding School and Mozart’s mass sung during the liturgical celebration . For those who can’t stand the Austro-Hungarian atmosphere of the Musikverein on New Year’s Day, complete with waltz-rhythm breaks, instead of the Wiener Philharmoniker they can choose Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Konzerthaus. Il sipario musicale also has a partnership with Fai (Fondo per l’ambiente Italiano), with which it organizes trips with a guide with programs based on the actual interweaving between music and culture. At the end of October, for example, a trip to Barcelona was held focusing on the artists of the early twentieth century who made the city famous (Picasso, Domenech i Montaner, Gaudì and Mirò), combined with one or more musical events, from Troubadour by Verdi at the Gran Teatre del Liceu at the Concerto for piano and orchestra n. 3 in C minor by Beethoven.