C21st souvenirs

Forgive the interlude, but this is amusing and I’ve just realised it. I’m collecting aps. I’m a hoarder. I’ve always collected train tickets and newspapers and local gig lists and programs and the like, but they are heavy and I’ve tried to wean myself off this habit. But now I find I’m collecting mobile phone aps. The train timetables and underground maps replaced paper some time ago and Google Maps became central to my travel experience more recently and my mobile virtually replaced my camera years back. But it’s Hi!Tide Venezia that had me realising the pleasure of collecting local virtual experiences. We’ve been in Venice immediately following some of the highest acqua alta (high tides) for yonks. This one reached and damaged the mosaic floors of the glorious Basilica di San Marco for only the fifth time in its 900 year history. That’s a tragedy. Our experience was more pedestrian. We were hemmed into our apartment by water that flooded our entrance. The Acqua Alta is a product of tides and winds (the Sirocco, a warm wind from Africa that pushes water up the Adriatic). So I was delighted when someone told me of this ap that predicts the Acqua Alta. Hi!Tide Venice. Souvenir hunting for the C21st century.

Touring

Musica da Camera tours its concerts to local towns like Cooma or Gunning. Allegri was a Munich band touring to Venice. Only in Europe! You see lots of people with instrument cases on public transport in Europe. I’d noticed one woman when we shared a waiting room in Munich, then seen her walking to the same train in Munich then exited the train into a theorbo case in Venice and this was her group. We were obviously meant to hear them so we did. They were Allegri, Ensemble für Alte Musik München; they were playing Himmel und Erde – Cielo e terra, sacred and profane music of the 1600s; they were five period instrumentalists with five vocalists; their venue was the Chiesa Luterana di Campo Ss. Apostoli (just tangentially, fronting a Titian and a Cronach). This was a lovely outing, I understood little of the words but the music was evident. Buxtehude and Monteverdi but also Schein and Schütz and von Plawenn and Landi, Pez and Rosenmüller. Several names I didn’t know but all dignified with soft tones of gut and harpsichord and theorbo and occasional recorder and those harmonies from five or variously smaller numbers of voices. One work was instrumental: Pez Sonata Settima. Most songs spoke of religious themes or death, as that era mostly did. But more than one spoke of lust or love. Some things never change. This was a lovely concert by a bunch of capable but non-professional musicians on tour. Much enjoyed and I was happy to form a relationship with their fellow if Antipodean musical tourists, MdC, with the gift of our CD. Allegri, auguri da Canberra!

Ensemble Allegri of Munich performed late Mediaeval music in Venice. Allegri comprised Kristina Maidt-Zinke and Elisabeth Röder (sopranos), Martin Witzko (tenor), Horst Mauder and Jochen Schnapka (bass), Annette Baumann and Claudia Zwenzner (violins), Katharina vom Berg (viola da gamba), Marianne Schiela (theorbo, recorder) and Dorothea Böhme-Mauder (harpsichord).

Ragazzi, sempre avanti

It’s an interlude, of course, but Venice can be no other. We’re here following some of the highest tides that Venice has seen over the centuries, after travelling through some of the roughest weather that Italy has reported for yonks and after a European summer that had everyone out for a tan. That’s climate change but Venice was threatened even before our awareness of climate change. It’s gloriously beautiful in its decay, ridiculously teaming with tourists, stunningly rich with art and vistas. We, too, are just tourists. Even my cousins from the Veneto from perhaps 40 kms distance, would not call themselves Veneziani. In fact, most services are now provided by people living off the islands, in Mestre and thereabouts. It’s happening with other cities, too. The rich and the tourist industry are displacing the very thing that draws them. Thus London is complaining of empty housing owned by foreigners and Manhattan is increasingly a plaything for the wealthy. As tourists, we are part of it. But how can you not drool. I’m missing my piece of Leonardo here (Vitruvian man at L’Accademia) because there’s just not time and maybe it’s not even on display. You should always save something for next time. But I’ve ogled at the gloriously decaying buildings and the mid-Eastern influences and seen my share of Tintoretto and Titian and done my best to avoid tourist routes (virtually impossible). And met up with the rellies. God, how this place is beautiful. But I say nothing new there. As for the “Ragazzi, sempre avanti”, that was just the theme for a mad dash through the hoards to see yet another ridiculously opulent site, the Scuola di San Rocca, replete with immense Tintoretto bible scenes and baroque wood carvings and gilt features and the rest. Some pics.

Not a threesome

Not a trio, but a quartet, or at least a guitar trio with a singer out front. And not really jazz, although it was advertised as that. This was straight down the line blues. The band was playing Sonny Boy Williams. The guy out front was switching into blues harp from his gravelly singing and presentation. Then blues and jazz are often confused. They might be from similar sources and influence each other, but they are clearly different streams. But this was gushing. This was dirty, telling stories of seduction and love gone wrong, mostly through SBW’s poor sexual manners. Singer Ricardo told me afterwards that SBW’s birthday wasn’t even certain: he was clearly from the poor, post-slavery black South. It’s some excuse. Whatever, I though Ricardo did it with conviction and I loved that strong, deepish, gravelly voice and his harp playing was nicely convincing, too. The encore was Bye bye bird, as done by SBW solo in concert in Europe in his peak. It was convincing. The band was guitar, e-bass, drums. I was especially impressed by drums, always on the spot. And this was the Bauers: 5-stars, very close to Piazza San Marco and with its own Grand Canal frontage. Read expensive. So apart from being way beyond the Harmonie German Club (and no better than the best players there), it cost a motza and the atmosphere was strangely restrained, sitting in leather bucket seats with waiters waiting and generous nibbles and, I guess, not many in the know about SBW. But that’s how it is in entertainment. I liked Ricardo’s take on his hero, but I’ll take the Canberra Blues Club for the cheaper beer. But isn’t that the blues?

Despite the program, Ricardo Grosso (vocals, blues harp) led a quartet playing the music of Sonny Boy Williams at The Brauers, Venice. His offsiders were Martimo Cargnel (guitar), Loris Tagliapietro (e-bass) and Mario Bonutto (drums).

Divina - visits

Cruising is an indulgent pastime. Eating, drinking, shows are the order of each day. This one has daily visits to cities, but they are just tastes. At least the tastes are of impressive morsels: Hagia Sophia and Istanbul, Ephesus from Ishmir, Olympia, Dubrovnik, Bari, round trip out of Venice. We melt over the history and references: Europe meets Asia; Christianity moves from Rome to Constantinople; ancient games and studies; Roman empire threaded amongst it all. Just touches of things to revisit some time if time allows. Always leave something for next time. Just some pics.

Venice on a Wednesday

Sketch by Francesca Sciarretta

Francesca told me that Wednesday is a good night for music in Venice. So it’s not surprising that I found Franca Pullia performing with her quintet at the local bar, Osteria Poppa in Santa Croce, where they perform each Wednesday.

I first heard a latin tune, so expected jazz, but although there were some jazz tunes, and a clear jazz influence in the sax, this was more a pop/funk band, playing Stevie Wonder and similar worthy and popular and funky material. What’s not to like in this repertoire? The Beatles’ Come together, Nancy Sinatra’s Bang bang, an interesting mix of Fly me to the moon sandwiched by Walking on the Moon, Sonny, Higher ground, Superstition. All very popular and perfectly good entertainment to go with your beer (except perhaps for All of me, which I prefer not to think of as jazz anyway). The bass and sax and drums set a nice and steady groove, if sometimes a little rushed. The acoustic bass guitar tone was very satisfying; the keys changed to organ and clavinet as required; the drums were effective despite the small kit although I would have liked to hear the snare switched in more. I noticed that the band didn’t carry much equipment, but given transport in Venice, I’m not surprised. Franca sang in English with a good, strong voice and a lovely latin accent that said Brazil to me, although Italy is really the latin country par excellence (after all, where is Latin from if not from Rome). Aldo was sitting in for the normal sax player Guglielmo Pagnozzi, and did a great job on soprano, adding a jazz sensibility in the mix with its complexity and richness. I particularly liked his playing on the final number, Superstition, where he took the single chord and soloed in some Middle-Eastern scale that gave unexpected, unresolved tones that were a joy to my ear.

I was also pleased to meet Francesca who was sketching the band. Her daytime role is in civil engineering and preservation of buildings (she’s currently working on the Palazzo Ducale) for which there’s a real need here in Venice, of course. But she also does a good line in band sketches. I’ve included a link below to her Facebook site with more sketches of Venetian bands. This one is a finished sketch of a local blues band. The one above is Francesca's finished sketch of Franca's band playing at the Poppa. Nice one.

It’s been an interesting night in Venice. I enjoy the depth of cultural time here in Europe and everyone falls in love with this place. I sometimes feel the old world is a place stuck in its history and that the new world is actually where change is happening. But I’d eaten at a very good and less traditional restaurant (another local, La Zucca), found a lively bar, and enjoyed local live music: this is quite like my local Canberra experience. But the babies in the bar and the busy, familial air and mix of generations in the local Piazza di San Giacomo d’Orio seem different. So although we share many common experiences these days, there remain differences that justify travel. And despite increasing corporatisation and globalization, hopefully it may ever be.

Franca Pullia (vocals) led her resident quintet, Frankie Back From Hollywood, at the Osteria Poppa in Venice with Max Bustreo (keyboards), Loris Tagliapietra (acoustic bass guitar) and Giovanni Natoli (drums). Aldo Via (soprano sax) sat in for Guglielmo Pagnozzi. Francesca Sciarretta was sketching.

Francesca Sciarretta's FB site with sketches