Piano pianissimo

For three days, Milano will resonate with the sound of hundreds of pianos. The second edition of Pianocity is about to start with an amazing event: "Cut the Jam" is a concert for 21 pianos which will take place tonight at Rotonda della Besana. At 8 pm and then again at 10 pm, 21 pianists will play works by different artists from different periods of the history of music, ranging from Gioacchino Rossini to Michael Nyman.
The programme for tonight is the following: M. Nyman "1 - 100", G. Rossini "Transcriptions from operas", A.V. Lourié "Formes en l’air – à Pablo Picasso", C. Nancarrow "studio #3 c", D. Lombardi "Sinfonie 2 e 3", J. Cage "Winter music", T. Riley, "inc.".
Riley's work will be played by all 21 pianos four hands: 42 + 42 = 84 hands!
The players tonight are: Dario Bonuccelli, Angela Feola, Antonello d’Onofrio, Vittorio Rabagliati, Maria Isabella de Carli, Angelo Russo, Francesco Calcagno, Luca Marcossi, Stefano Ligoratti, Vincenzo Pasquariello, Jacopo Petrosino, Hideiko Hinohara, Andrea Napoleoni, Antonio Bonazzo, Alfonso Alberti, Ricciarda di Belgiojoso, Nicoletta Feola, Cesare Grassi, Claudio Soviero, Stefano Fiacco, Stefano Malferrari, Giuseppe Gullotta.

It is also a wonderful occasion to visit the so-called Rotonda della Besana, a baroque building complex and former cemetery, with an elegant hoctagonal portico (where the 21 pianos have been placed) enclosing a garden with the deconsacrated church of San Michele ai Sepolcri.

The following two days are full of concerts, which will take place in some of the city's cultural landmarks but also in courtyards and even in private homes; famous pianists together with budding talents will play their keyboards in museums, public libraries, underground stations, parks and squares.
Most of the concerts are free, but booking is necessary.

Organ concerts... and more!

Duomo

Some of the finest churches in Milano will host a new series of organ concerts in April.
Admission is free to all venues.

Sunday 14th - 16:30 - S. Maria della Passione, via Conservatorio 16
organist: Maurizio Salerno; music by Bach, Buxtehude

Saturday 20th - 11:30 - Sant'Ambrogio, piazza Sant'Ambrogio
organist Maria Massimini; music by Faurè, Cantique de Jean Racine for choir and organ, op. 48; choir: Canticum '96

Sunday 21st - 17:00 - S. Simpliciano, piazza S. Simpliciano
organist: Gianluca Capuano; Victimae paschali laudes

Saturday 27th - 15:45 - Duomo
celebration of The Netherlands National Day and birthday of future king Willem Alexander

Sunday 28th - 17:00 - S. Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, via Montegani
organist: Lorenzo Ghielmi; music by Frescobaldi, Pasquini, Sammartini

On Saturday 20th, at 16:00, the Sala della Balla of the Sforza Castle , where the 12 magnificent Trivulzio tapestries are on display, will host a concert of Baroque musique. Admission is included in the ticket to the museum, which costs just 3 euros.

Mozart in Milano: the church of Sant'Antonio Abate

photograph by Giovanni Dall'Orto - WikiCommons

The name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has an unexpected yet strong link with the city of Milano. The genius of Saltzburg visited Italy three times during his life, but it is here in Milano that he wrote and performed the first of his works to be still widely performed today, the solo motet Exsultate, Jubilate (K. 165). Here it is performed by Cecilia Bartoli, one of the finest voices in the world, and Claudio Abbado, the great Milanese conductor.

Exsultate, Jubilate was written for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini - who, according to Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang's father, "sang like an angel" - and premiered on Sunday, January 17 1773 (Mozart was just 16), in the church of Saint Anthony the Abbott.

The link with Mozart is just one of many reasons to visit this beautiful church, in via Sant'Antonio 5 (five minutes from piazza del Duomo), a hidden treasure little known both to the tourists and to Milanese themselves. 
In the XVIII century, when Mozart was in Milano, the church was still associated with the order of the Theatines, a religious congregation which worships the Virgin and the Holy Cross. The latter is the subject of an important cycle of frescoes on the vaults of Sant'Antonio, representing the Stories of the Holy Cross which - according to the legend - was found in Jerusalem by Saint Helena, emperor Constantine's mother, in the IV century.
The interior of the church is a sort of "museum" of Mannerism style, elegant and sophisticated, with some exquisite works by Giovan Battista Crespi (nicknamed "Cerano"), Procaccini and Carracci.
Next to the altar is a statue of saint Anthony the Abbott, with a little pig at his feet. Why Saint Anthony is universally recognized as the patron of hogs is actually unknown, but one reason may be his being credited in assisting in miraculous healings from shingles, also known as "St. Anthony's Fire". From the end of the XIII century to the beginning of the XVI, the friars of Saint Anthony managed a small hospital where people suffering from St. Anthony Fire were cured, mainly with soothing preparations derived from pig's fat.

The other side of The Last Supper

When visiting the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, few people can take their eyes off the masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper. Yet the Crucifixion displayed on the opposite wall is worth attentive observation.
Its author is Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, who worked back to back  with Leonardo in 1495. While the genius from Vinci was experimenting with colours, painting on the dry wall rather than on a wet plaster and therefore condemning his work to precocious deterioration, Montorfano diligently used the fresco technique. That is why his Crucifixion is so bright and vivid still today, while Leonardo's Last Supper started to flake only a few years after its completion.
The different resistance to time of the two techniques is dramatically evident in the portraits of Ludovico il Moro, his wife Beatrice and their sons Massimiliano and Francesco, which Leonardo painted a secco, that is working on a dry surface, on Montorfano's work. Time has reduced the four figures, who are kneeling down in the bottom corners of the Crucifixion, to ghostly witnesses to the death of Jesus.

The scene depicted by Montorfano is incredibly crowded and detailed. At the foot of the three crosses, groups of people react differently to the tragedy which is going on: dominican friars and nuns (who actually commissioned both works for the refectory of the Convent) barely daring to look; three women holding grief-stricken Maria, the only figure in the scene clad in light blue; John the Apostle watching soldiers who throw dice for Jesus' clothing.
On the background, the high walls of Jerusalem - a clear homage to Bramante, and on the foreground the crosses, tall and thin, inaccessible to human reach.
At the center of the composition, at the foot of the middle cross, Mary Magdalene is passionately clinging to the wood as if it was Jesus himself, her red hair loosely spread on her shoulders.
Her human, earthly love so evident in her desperate gesture, will strike a chord with all visitors.
A good reason to spend some of the 15 minutes allowed inside the refectory to pay homage to Montorfano's masterpiece.

Three Wise Men and a Star

The Three Wise Men, whose visit to Jesus after his birth is celebrated on the day of Epiphany, have an unexpected yet strong connection with Milano.
Saint Eustorgio, the first bishop of the city, brought their relics from the Holy Land to Milano, and ordered a church to be built to be the site of their tomb.
Such church is the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio.
In the XII century Milano was overthrown by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, who sacked the city and brought the relics of the Magi to Cologne, in Germany, where they have been housed until the XX century.
Only in 1903, after long negotiations, fragments of the bones and garments (two brooches, one tibia, and one vertebra) were sent back to Milano, and are now kept in a bronze urn above the altar in the Chapel of the Magi, in Sant'Eustorgio.
Milano's place in the legend of the Magi is reaffirmed by the procession of the Magi, which takes place every 6th of January from the Duomo to the Basilica.
And a lasting homage to the memory of the Three Kings is the eight-pointed star, rather than the traditional cross, that surmounts the Basilica's bell tower.