Il Piave murmured: music and words from the front of World War I

29 May at 18.00 Il Piave murmured/ 1

Tenor Leonardo De Lisi
Piano Leonardo Previero
Voice reciting Piera Dabizzi

The hymns that greeted the entry of Italy in the Great War and the songs that accompanied the long days of the soldiers in the trenches, returned in their original essentiality by a voice and a piano, are interwoven with the poems of writers such as Corrado Govoni, Pietro Jahier, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Ardengo Soffici, Corrado Alvaro, Renato Perseni and Carlo Delcroix, some of whom were personally involved in war actions at the front, and in the diaries and letters of the fallen infantry fighting for freedom. It is the literary and musical tale of the First World War, a carnage that caused between 15 and 17 million deaths.

19 June at 18.00 Il Piave murmured / 2

Choir La Martinella del CAI di Firenze
Voice reciting Rosa Sarti

Through the diary of the Tuscan infantryman Ubaldo Baldinotti, who fought his Great War on the heights of the Karst before being taken prisoner the day after the defeat of Caporetto, and some of the most popular songs of our soldiers at the front performed by the Coro La Martinella dei CAI of Florence, guest for the first time of the Maggio Musicale, will be recalled without rhetoric, but with strong emotional suggestions, some dramatic moments in the personal history of Baldinotti, common to many of his other comrades in arms: the battles, the horror of death, the retreat, imprisonment, humiliations, hunger, but finally also joy for the end of the war and the long-awaited return home. A compelling story, made even more exciting by the music.