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AN
HOMAGE TO THE VIRTUOSO ERNESTO CAMILLO SIVORI
In
the world of music we are used to remember prestigious and resonant
names, forgetting other less accredited protagonists that are notwithstanding
basic in order to reconstruct the musical an cultural map of our past.
The centenaries and the fiftieth anniversaries are looked after as market
opportunities and not as a genuine expression of a cultural intent.
Well
then this time I want to pay homage to Ernesto Camillo Sivori, born
in 1815 and dead 1894 in Genoa. Violinist and compositor, he was the
only pupil of Paganini and in his biographic notes this important remnant
of life is well documented. Sivori became one of the main virtuosi of
his century, keeping on the nineteenth-century fashioned tradition that
highlighted the instrumental bravura as one of the most important issues
of the XIX century musical salon. It's important to underline an element
of a great importance.
The
Ligurian musicologist Alberto Cantù, the greatest expert of the Paganini's
production, since time has been interested to Sivori, forestalling times
and not extemporizing himself, from one day to the next, as an expert
of a personage that had a so important role in the international concert
world. Sivori had a gathering role, since Liszt and Wagner deemed him
as a protagonist no to be undervalued.
His musical grandeur overcame remarkably his physical stature and that
was a worry for him, even if the public did not care this defect.
What was important was his message that provoked intensive emotions
to hearers. The style reflected a special attention to the musical "fireworks",
giving the public an amusing pyrotechnic spectacle, provided the imagination
and the taste for extemporaneity that started from his Genovese maestro.
From
his experience as a concert player it arose a histrionic and seductive
personage forestalling, by an utmost far-sightedness, the future based
over the curiosity of the personage and his sense of histrionics.
His
fame went overseas and he held concerts all over Europe and the New
World. Critics by that time deemed him as a phenomenon, in a positive
mean, but with the little condition he reminded the great and unreachable
Nicolò Paganini.
So
Sivori wasn't lucky enough to become an absolute protagonist. The two
concerts of his we know highlight a stressed attention toward the melodic
line, the result of a tradition that based its whole musical message
over a motif easy to remember. His activity led him to the first performance
of the del "Requiem" in re minor of L. Cherubini, and then he collaborated
in 1861 in Paris with F. Litz.
He
didn't spare himself, travelling frenzy from a country to another. Don't
forget that his career lasted for nearly seventy years. With Sivori
we are face an eclectic and acrobatic musician, ever ready to stand
comparison.
This
regard we find him attentive watcher of the didactic world, and he composed
pieces fitting young violinists and preventing falling in the diabolic
taste that belonged to the Paganini's style. It does not fall the centenary
of his death but it seems important to me to remember this protagonist
that in his life was other but a 'subordinate'.
An
opportunity to reflect upon.
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