folk choir in Campo San Fantin

On the way home tonight, I passed through Campo San Fantin, in front of the Fenice.  Gathered at the restaurant just to the right of the theater was a men’s choir in black capes and hats, mostly tyrolean, singing an Italian song honoring war dead.  Turns out they are a folk choir from Bassano del Grappa.  Once a year they come into Venice to perform — come to think of it, I don’t know if they had a concert or just wandered the city singing.  But they were very happy to talk about who they are and what they’re doing.  I tried acting as translator for another interested bystander, an American woman.  Upon learning that the song we’d heard was in honor of recently fallen war dead (19 Italians killed in Iraq), she asked me to tell our interlocutor that she/many Americans think that Bush is a mass-murderer and to apologize for the war and for their loss.  I tried, but it’s not a vocabulary I’m really familiar with, and I was more interested in talking music with the guys.  In a bid to push my street cred, I asked if they knew “Marietta monta in gondola” — and then had a nice chat with Maurizio, the choir member with the video camera.  Very cool.

success!

My little talk went really, really well and was a lot of fun. And such perceptive, wonderful questions and comments afterwards! (One very learned pensioner told me that he never knew that the l’homme arme masses were based on a French song. Another asked when the “grammar” of music came to be codified.) Definitely a success! Many thanks to my Chicagoland agents who hooked me up with the materials I lacked.

One funny thing.  I was party to a conversation about Beethoven.  I knew it wasn’t possible, but my brain couldn’t get past the idea that they were talking about a work of his called “the grandmother.”  Proof positive that context, habit, and a still-underdeveloped sensitivity to the distinction between single and double consonants can make all the difference in the world.  (They were discussing his “Ninth” not his “Grandmother” — nona, not nonna….)

a little stressed

To help out Mamma G., I agreed to give a little talk to the cultural organization she presides over. Their theme this year is the Benelux region (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), and there was an unexpected hole in the schedule of speakers, so I offered to speak about northern composers in Italy during the renaissance. I’d be a happier camper if I had all of my own recordings and other materials here with me. I’d be even happier if my Italian were actually fluent. But she doesn’t seem worried, so I won’t be either. *gulp*

Here’s the announcement:

Giovedì 28, quindi alle 17.30, ci ritroveremo in sede per ascoltare la nostra borsista di Chicago, Shawn Keener, che ci parlerà dell’argomento del suo dottorato “Musicisti fiamminghi in Italia e la musica del Rinascimento”. L’argomento è molto interessante e intrigante [...] i musicofili e gli altri scopriranno notizie e curiosità inedite.

This is not my most important or weightiest upcoming talk, but it’s the soonest, and it’s doing a good job of getting me exercised.

the package is in the building

As I may have mentioned on this blog, and as I have certainly regailed some of you at length, I’ve been awaiting a package that arrived on Italian soil on December 5th. Today — Wednesday, February 20th — is the day it arrived. This success is due entirely to the dogged labor of mamma G, who worked right up to the last stages of this odyssey to get the package into my hands.

The shipment contains medication, you see. (Cleverly described as “health aid” by the pharmacy on the bill of lading.) This required a whole set of papers to be filled out and faxed. Then refaxed when, a month later, come to find out that the fax machine had been broken and the paperwork never arrived. Then the customs medical inspector decided — contrary to all the requirements indicated on said paperwork — that I needed a letter from an Italian doctor. Thank goodness pappa G is an MD. The letter was faxed and mailed. Then re-faxed when it mysteriously wasn’t received again. Then: no news, no news, for a couple more weeks. Family friends in another customs office were called, inquiries made, irate phone calls of various sorts placed…. All this by Beata Mamma G, who, like a bloodhound, tracked down the package which had ended up in Marghera. Stranded there for ten days because (get this) the address read “Via San Marco” rather than “Sestiere San Marco.” Setting aside what a crock that would be (you’re telling me no one in the history of Italian post has addressed something to a “via” in Venice?), now that the package is in hand, I can attest that it doesn’t say that. Perhaps they were having trouble because the carbon copy of the original USPS address form is fading from prolonged overexposure.

I was a little worried that a quirk in the original prescription would leave me with less than the three-month supply I was supposed to receive, but I’m happy to report that that is not true. Shawn 1, The Man 15.

Here’s the blessed package:

And the holy grail itself:

I must also assume that mamma G shamed them into revoking whatever duties they planned on imposing, since at the bottom of the palimpsest of paperwork on one side is a big sticker reading “ONERI DOGANALI.”

In other postal news: I just learned that the Christmas package and birthday card sent to me by Aunt Connie have arrived back on her doorstep. I had assumed the former had been taken home by a postal worker long ago. If it made it into the country, I certainly never heard about it.

OK, basta cosi’. Enough. Italian postal woes are old news.

Complesso Vocale and my complexes

Choir rehearsal tonight. I was again declared a “monster” sight-reader, because I read (rather flawlessly) the Vivaldi pieces the choir worked up for a concert last fall. I am a total sucker for this kind of praise. It elates me. Makes my day. Never mind that 1) I know it’s not magic, 2) I’m highly trained, 3) I’ve taught aural skills, 4) I’m far from the best sight reader I know, 5) Vivaldi is super easy to sight read. Of course, I demure and am gracious. It intrigues, though, that despite the fact I can contextualize the praise, it still makes me swoon. Do I need the ego boost that much? I think it’s another indication that deep down I prefer being a big fish in a small pond — even if, objectively, I would do just fine among bigger fish, should I so choose. (It’s awfully hard to pit easy endorphins against…whatever it is that is produced by doggedly challenging yourself.)

Here’s a link to the concert the Complesso performed last fall.

Treviso, continued

I’m figuring out Treviso. Bought myself a guidebook and keep my map in hand. Somehow it seems more acceptable to walk around with a map in hand there than it does in Venice. Or maybe I’m just getting more comfortable with preemptively outing myself as a foreigner.

The Biblioteca Comunale has a charming little Sala Manoscritti — wood-paneled (i.e. high, elaborately-carved  wainscotting with benches) above which are silk-clad walls running up to the 30-foot ceiling. The librarian is charming, too — quiet, courtly, and wry.  I can no longer remember his name and, in fact, messed it up the moment he told me — but he kindly offered to write it down for me.  Despite my inability to remember his name, he offered to show me around the closed sections of the library.

Because the library is so small, there are no limits to requests and they allow (well, he allows) do-it-yourself photography.  The only downside to this small-town atmosphere is the schedule: the manuscript room is open 9:30-6:00, with a lunch break from 1:00-2:30. I usually spend that long lunch uploading and cataloging my photographs, but occasionally I take an exploratory walk. That’s how I’m figuring out this maze-y little town. I would take advantage of the time and the terra firma prices to get some shopping done, but everything is closed for lunch.

Over lunch on Thursday, I was blazing a new path for myself when I heard a tapping on a car window… tapping obviously aimed at me. To my great surprise it was Emmanuela — my Trevisan friend and fellow UofC doctoral student. I’d been thinking about her a lot and had only that morning solemnly sworn to myself to email her that evening. For her part, she was on her way from the airport, having just arrived from Chicago. What are the odds?

Treviso, Schlecker, Despar

For some reason, I find Treviso just baffling. I have gotten lost almost every day I’ve been there. I’ll be fine one day, lost the next. Beeline to the library in the morning, and walk in circles that evening. (I swear I hit a wormhole on the way home last night.) How could such a tiny town be so hard to navigate?

Just around the corner from the library is Schlecker. Feels just like a Walgreens, but without the pharmacy, and all the store brands are labeled in German. What pleased me so much about finding this store is not just saving some money on shampoo, but finding — for the first time — actual cat treats. Nando is a lucky cat. Lily’s got some coming, too. (She’s the American ex-pat kitty at Ca’ Giudice.)

(I don’t know why, but “Cat-Stix…mit frischem fleisch” just cracks me up.)

In my new life as a commuter I’ve also discovered the joys of the Despar grocery store in the Treviso train station. Convenience at a rock bottom prices. And they give me change. Cheerfully.  Given these two stores, I wonder if the Americanization of the continent is growing faster than is at first apparent?

woodcuts

I spent last week in Rome for the nearly-mid-year meeting for the Fulbright. Lots happened, much of it worthy of recounting. Another time, perhaps. Meanwhile, here are a couple of great woodcuts from a chapbook at the Biblioteca Comunale in Treviso.

Clickherefor webalbum and larger view