All posts by glferme

Sugietto cholla forma

Un brano che Leonardo scrisse in una pagina di quello che oggi si conosce come Codice Atlantico viene citato qui e là in diverse versioni, nessuna veramente fedele all’originale. È un po’ difficile trascrivere un testo del passato scritto di pugno perché – nel Rinascimento, in questo caso – si usavano molte abbreviazioni e a volte più grafie delle stesse parole, anche nella stessa pagina. Questo è il mio tentativo di trascrivere cosí come lo leggo, il testo di questa pagina. Spero che serva a qualcuno e sarei contento se poteste correggere eventuali errori.


Sugietto cholla forma

Muovesi lamāte* Pla cosamato come [cancellato] il senso colla sensibile chosecho sunisce
effassi una cosa medesima
loPa e la prima chosa che nasse dellunione
sella cosa amata e vile . lamāte si fa vile 

Quando.la chosa unita . e choñeniēte alsuo
unitore . liseguita . dilettatione . e piacere essadisfatione

quādo lamāte e giūto . allamato li siriposa

quādo . il . peso . eposato . lisiriposato

la cosasachogniussuta chol nostro intelletto

*Nell’originale, si legge “amata”, ma in altre parti dello scritto il macron – il trattino sopra una lettera che indica l’elissi della lettera seguente, in questo caso la “n” – è appena leggibile. Inoltre, la forma della lettera finale di questa parola potrebbe essere data da un inchiostro molto fluido. Quindi questa parola potrebbe essere letta come “amante”. Ricordiamoci che Leonardo scriveva da destra a sinistra per rendere più difficile la lettura a chi trovava i suoi scritti, ma può darsi che questo creasse delle sviste occasionali anche a lui nella stesura dei suoi pensieri.

** Ho usato la “P” maiuscola per il segno di “p” con una virgola che attraversa il gambo che indica la sillaba “per” nel manoscritto.

Traduzione “a senso”, tenendo conto che alcuni dei termini (come “senso” o “opera”) sono propri delle discussioni filosofiche e hanno un significato più ampio di quello del linguaggio corrente.

L’amante è mosso dalla cosa amata come i sensi si uniscono e si fanno tutt’uno con l’oggetto della loro attenzione.
Un’azione è la prima cosa che nasce da questa unione.
Se la cosa amata è vile, l’amante compierà un’azione vile.

Quando la cosa a cui ci si unisce fa del bene a chi la sente ne consegue piacere e soddisfazione.

Quando l’amante si unisce a ciò che è amato, non ha bisogno di altro.

Quando si scrolla di dosso un peso, lí si riposa.

[e] la cosa amata è esplorata dal nostro intelletto.

Splash Down

For years I visited my father in Anzio, on the coast of Italy, south of Rome. On my numerous walks with my wife and children, I would pass by a structure standing in the sea, right by the shore. It used to be a restaurant-slash-dance club called Splash Down, but it closed its doors and remained vacant for years.

Here is my little watercolor tribute to it.

If you want to read more about this place, click here.

Anzio, "Splash Down", Watercolor on paper, April 2020
Anzio, “Splash Down”, Watercolor on paper, April 2020

Shakin’ It, Renaissance Style

(“Post-in-progress”)

Eddie Van Halen soloing.
Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen in Chicago, on March 4, 1978. (Photo by Paul Natkin/WireImage)

We are used to classical musicians playing music in a very controlled environment: musicians on one side, audience on the other. Musicians minimizing any sound and body movement that is not produced by their playing the instrument, the audience minimizing any noise so as not to disturb the enjoyment of the music played.

But here is an interesting few lines describing a performance of a virtuoso lutenist of the early Renaissance, Pietrobono de Burzellis, a musician who spent most of his time at the court of Ferrara. It is  an excerpt from a eulogy by poet and orator Aurelio Brandolini describing how the lutenist Pietrobono moved as he played:

Adde quod et vultu cantum gestumque decorat, / quaeque canti cithara, corpore et ore refert. / Nunc caput in terram curvat, nunc tollit in auras, / et vultum ad citharam, labia pedesque movet. / Lumina cum fidibus flectit pariterque reflectit, / totus cum cithara concinit ipse sua. /

(Translation: “Add to this that he accompanies his song and gestures with facial expressions, he delivers each song on the cithara with his body and voice. At times he bends his head towards the ground, others he turns it towards the ceiling, and then moves his face, lips and feet close to the chitara. He turns his eyes one way and another, his whole being singing with the chitara.”)

 

15 Years of Texturing Our Minds…

Lunch at Yolanda on our 15th Anniversary as a club.
Lunch at Yolanda on our 15th Anniversary as a club.

15 yeas ago, my wife – Daniela – and I were having a conversation with our friend Ricardo Rivero about what makes a good movie. As we talked, I thought, “Why don’t we get together with other people and share what we find successful about films we watch?”  We decided not only to watch movies, but to first get together to eat dinner. We had a live website documenting our reviews and hence the name: I could not find any available names that made sense, so I started combining words and, lo and behold, www.braintexture.com went live!

More later on our discussions, since we decided to revive our website to share our conversations to people interested in watching the same movies.

The Castelfranco Manuscript

(Link to the document: Intavolatura manoscritta per liuto del duomo di Castelfranco Veneto – Trascrizione)

Screenshot from a page of the Castelfranco Manuscript, written by Giovanni Massarotto "Pacalono", in Padua, during May of 1565.
Screenshot from a page of the Castelfranco Manuscript, written by Giovanni Massarotto “Pacalono”, in Padua, during May of 1565.

I am posting my transcription of the Castelfranco Manuscript on this page to make it available to anyone who is interested.

I used Adobe Photoshop to clarify pages that presented water damage.

I would like to receive any suggestion/corrections you may have. After I review it to make corrections, I will send it various sites promoting lute or Renaissance music.  Feel free to send me an email me or use the comment section.

(Link to the document: Intavolatura manoscritta per liuto del duomo di Castelfranco Veneto – Trascrizione)

Rumbos y Destinos (“Directions and Destinations”)

Rumbos y Destinos is an album I prodecud and published in 2013 in Chicago. It is a small, maybe inadequate way to celebrate the endless peña nights of Chicago’s Latin-American restaurants. (A peña is the Latin American version of an “open stage” or “open mic”: anyone can show up to play.) No recording can do justice to the vibrant performances of all who played, sang, or improvised a comedic skit, and let their emotions run free like wild horses, inspiring our imagination, on those long, often cold, Chicago nights!

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chicago became the destination of many South Americans looking for work or a new beginning. At the same time, young Americans were coming back to Chicago from trips south of the border, attracted by the prospect of exotic adventures. Both groups yearned for places where they could enjoy the same music they listened to from Mexico to Argentina. They found what they were looking for in Chicago’s peñas: opportunities for entertainment as well as places where you could hear people debate about politics and the arts.

Leandro Lopez Varady (piano), Alberto Sanabria (harp), Agustin Alvarez (electric guitar), Pedro Rodriguez (guitar), Edward Carpio (percussion). At the Old Town School of Folk Music, April 2, 2014.
Leandro Lopez Varady (piano), Alberto Sanabria (harp), Agustin Alvarez (electric guitar), Pedro Rodriguez (guitar), Edward Carpio (percussion). At the Old Town School of Folk Music, April 2, 2014.

Once you walked into a restaurant or community organization where the peña took place, you were sure to make friends: everyone was welcome.

This project – which included an initial fundraising concert, recordings of a few of the musicians I was still in touch with in the early 2000s and a final concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music to launch the CD – was born from an idea to invite some of the “originals” from the 90s as well as newer talents from this underground world and have them record with studio musicians. They represent very different musical traditions from South America: Alba Guerra from Argentina, Alberto Sanabria from Paraguay; Alfonso Chacón and Nelson Sosa from Chile; Diana Mosquera and Marieth Quintero from Colombia; Hugo Treviño and Pedro Rodriguez both born in Mexico. I was born in Italy but in the CD I play four pieces inspired by my experiences in Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia with musicians both from North and South America.

The first peña I was invited was at Rio’s Casa Iberia. It was a scary place for a musician: people talked right over your playing! Then came El Ñandú. El Ñandú was the best place to be every Thursday night. Rita Bustos and her husband Miguel had put together the right combination of down-to-earth charm and cultural events that made that place sizzle with energy! Later, I discovered other places like La Peña and Sabor A Café, following the caravan of musicians who would hop from place to place to make music and have fun.

Over the years the energy of the Chicago peñas has dwindled, but there is still that occasional night… when the music catches on fire and people have to get up and dance!

Gian Luca Ferme and Diana Mosquera performing with Jose Ormaza (drums), Brett Benteler (bass), Tony Barba (tenor sax), James Davis and Mark Hiebert (trumpet). Also on stage but not in this photo: Leandro Lopez Varady (piano). At the Old Town School of Folk Music, April 2, 2014.
Gian Luca Ferme and Diana Mosquera performing with Jose Ormaza (drums), Brett Benteler (bass), Tony Barba (tenor sax), James Davis and Mark Hiebert (trumpet). Also on stage but not in this photo: Leandro Lopez Varady (piano). At the Old Town School of Folk Music, April 2, 2014.

(From the liner notes of the CD, published in Chicago, in July 2013.)