UmbriaEnsemble –“Hidden Treasures. The other side of XXth century”
“Impressions of War”
Saturday 26 March, h 17.00, Spoleto, San Nicolò Monumental Complex

“Daddy dear, I understand your wonder which is almost a scolding: why am I here and why am I not away from all clash of arms and battles? Why should I cause this pain to my family?”.

Thus wrote Spoletan lawyer Pietro Morichelli to his worried family in August 1915, after having volunteered to the front following Italy’s engagement in WWI. His words and thoughts came to us thanks to the many letters kept by his family; they portray historical fortunes that in the generous volunteer’s daily experience correspond to an intimately complex emotional frame, authentic and multifaceted: the enthusiasm of departure, the impulse that led the young lawyer to leave his desk and the certainties of a well-heeled, upper-class life, are progressively replaced by the awareness of reality, and the gap between many soldier’s patriotic trust and the cynicism of the ruling class, turn enthusiasm into unease, disillusion, dejection.
On the occasion of the celebrations for the Centennial of WWI, UmbriaEnsemble has prepared a music and reading original programme by the great historical and musicological value, featuring the letters, never published before, penned by the young Spoletan lawyer.
Saturday 26 March, at 17.00, at the San Nicolò Monumental Complex, the UmbriaEnsemble String Quartet (Angelo Cicillini and Cecilia Rossi, violin; Luca Ranieri, viola; M. Cecilia Berioli, cello), along with Claudio Carini’s voice (Fontemaggiore TSI) will present a new version of Casella‘s and Malipiero‘s pages, written during the Great War, as well as those by Umbrian musicians that went to the front, also unpublished. Compositions written between 1916 and 1917 and Pietro Morichelli’s letters (courtesy of Morichelli’s family), will retrace the history and tragedy of the Great War, so that such a useless carnage be no more.