The bells of Agnone

Posted on July 16, 2020 by babbityjean

Who invented the bell and how it was first used are unknown.  In Western antiquity, bells were widely used by the Etruscans: tomb illustrations suggest that music, which included bells and many other instruments, was important during banquets, religious celebrations, and funeral rites.  Bells are among the most ancient bronze artefacts in China, where they were used to summon philosophers to gather for meals and prayer.  They also had more practical daily purposes, like in Greece, where they were rung to signal the opening of a market and the sale of fish.

The first church bells rang in the city of Nola, now a suburb of Naples, in the fourth or fifth century CE.  The bishop Paulinus of Nola is credited with the introduction of bells in Christian worship.  His small hand bells were subsequently known as “nolas” and the larger tower bells as “campanas.”  In fact, with the transition from smaller to larger bells, the bronze from the Campania region (where Naples is located) was considered the best, hence the name campana, which means “bell” in Italian. The bronze alloy is obtained by mixing 78% copper with 22% tin.

Only a few bell foundries still remain in Italy.  The oldest dates from 1040 in Agnone, a town of about 5,200 current inhabitants in the Apennine hills of the Molise region.  The Marinelli Pontifical Foundry, the successor to the original foundry in Agnone, dates from 1339.  It is Italy’s oldest family business and among the three oldest family businesses worldwide.  The company is co-owned and operated by brothers Armando and Pasquale Marinelli.  The foundry typically produces up to 50 bells a year and currently employs around 12 people.

The Marinelli Pontifical Foundry still uses the same “lost wax casting” technique that it has for nearly a thousand years.  Even technology has not changed the technique nor reduced the production times, which vary from two to several months.  There are multiple steps in the manufacturing process.  The first step is the creation of the “soul,” which is a brick mold in the shape of a bell.  Then several layers of clay are placed over the soul to create a “false bell.”  Next molten wax is poured over the surface.  (In a separate process, friezes and decorations are made and applied to the false bell.) Then successive layers of clay are applied to create the “mantle” of the bell.  The structure is heated and the soul acts as a kiln, which causes the wax parts to melt and ensure that the inscriptions remain on the layers of clay.

Next, the mantle is raised to uncover and remove the false bell, which is discarded.  The mantle is repositioned on the soul.  Into the space between the soul and the mantle, molten bronze at a temperature of 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit is poured to produce the new bell.  Casting is the final step in the long process and is accompanied by invocations of “Santa Maria.”

In 1924, the Vatican awarded the title of “pontifical foundry” to the Marinelli company.  (The Roman Catholic Church now accounts for 90% of all orders placed.)    During the Second World War, the fascist regime ordered the seizure of half of Italy’s church bells to produce cannons. The Marinellis’ grandfather would alert priests ahead of time so that they could bury their bells, hiding them from authorities.  In 1944, the 17th-century bell in the Leaning Tower of Pisa (which is a campanile) was damaged during the bombings.  The foundry produced a 1,300-pound replica, which was installed there and started service on Easter, 2004.

In 1961, the foundry cast a special bell to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Italy’s unification.  In 1992, one of its bells commemorated the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas.  In 2000, Pope John Paul II was presented the official Jubilee Bell, which is hung in St. Peter’s Square.  The bells of the Marinelli Pontifical Foundry can be found throughout the world, including at the United Nations Building in New York City.  To review the history of the company, visit the Historical Museum of the Bell, which is located right next to the ancient foundry.

 

Posted in Arte, Campania, English, Foto, Italia, Musica, Napoli, New York, Storia, Vaticano | 1 Comment

Sergio Leone ed Ennio Morricone

Posted on July 9, 2020 by babbityjean

Molte settimane fa, ho scritto questo post, in cui descrivevo Ennio Morricone  come “una leggenda vivente”.  Il 6 luglio 2020 è morto a Roma dove è nato e vissuto.  Lui rimarrà una leggenda, e la sua musica perdurerà.

Sergio Leone ed Ennio Morricone sono nati a Roma alla fine degli anni ‘20, a soli tre mesi di distanza. Entrambi figli d’arte, i propri padri sono stati i loro primi insegnanti. Nessuno dei due parlava bene inglese, nonostante la loro popolarità nel mondo anglosassone. Per un breve periodo sono stati anche compagni di classe. Leone e Morricone alla fine sono stati una delle coppie professionali fra regista e compositore più famose ed esemplari nella storia del cinema.

Leone ha iniziato la sua carriera come assistente alla regia con Vittorio de Sica, durante la produzione di Ladri di biciclette nel 1948. Ha continuato a dirigere epopee, come Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei e Il colosso di Rodi. Più tardi, Leone si rifiutò l’offerta di dirigere Il Padrino perché ha preferito lavorare su una storia di gangster che sarebbe diventata il suo capolavoro. A metà degli anni ’60, quando il pubblico perse interesse per le epopee storiche, Leone si rivolse a un genere che lo aveva incuriosito fin dall’infanzia: il Western americano.

Fin da piccolo, Morricone suonava diversi strumenti, in particolare la tromba. Ha composto i suoi primi pezzi all’età di soli sei anni. Più tardi ha scritto musica per il teatro, sia musica classica per voce, che per pianoforte. Poi ha iniziato a scrivere e ad arrangiare musica per film come ghostwriter. Sebbene avesse composto musica per alcuni film Western, è stato l’arrangiamento per una canzone folk americana a catturare l’attenzione di Leone.

I punti di svolta nelle carriere di Leone e Morricone sono arrivati a metà degli anni ’60 collaborando ai seguenti film: Per un pugno di dollari, Per qualche dollaro in più e Il buono il brutto il cattivo. La trilogia è diventata nota come la trilogia dei dollari e anche come la trilogia dell’uomo senza nome. Ogni film ha avuto maggiore successo finanziario e tecnico rispetto al precedente, e ciascuno artista ha contribuito a durature innovazioni nel genere.

Leone ha ridefinito la trama del Western, i personaggi e lo stile; e anche lo stesso personaggio del cowboy americano cambia nell’aspetto, nel carattere e nella motivazione. Finiscono gli uomini belli e ben vestiti con cappelli bianchi per gli eroi e cappelli neri per i cattivi. I personaggi di Leone sono più realistici e complessi, spesso “lupi solitari” che sono moralmente ambigui. Le relazioni ruotano attorno a denaro, potere e punizione. La violenza dilaga. La cinematografia di Leone è sbalorditiva: spesso contrappone scatti ravvicinati di volti sporchi, con la barba lunga e minacciosi a lunghe riprese di una bellissima terra, sebbene sterile, tipiche del Vecchio West, insieme a scatti interni splendidamente incorniciati.

Invece di arrangiamenti orchestrali usati nei precedenti Western, Morricone usa spari, fruste, fischi, voci, arpa ebraica, tromba e la nuova chitarra elettrica. I suoi effetti speciali hanno punteggiato l’azione e contribuiscono a creare un effetto viscerale. Per Leone, la musica eclettica e toccante è stata protagonista dei suoi film. Si diceva che continuasse le scene perché non voleva che la musica finisse, il che probabilmente ha contribuito a film un po’ lunghi e lenti.

Dopo la trilogia dei dollari, Leone e Morricone hanno collaborato alla cosiddetta trilogia di c’era una volta. La partitura di Morricone per il primo film, C’era una volta il West, è oggi una delle partiture strumentali originali più vendute al mondo. Il terzo film, C’era una volta in America, è il geniale capolavoro di Leone. Con Robert de Niro, è storia di gangster e di amicizia a Manhattan negli anni del proibizionismo americano.

Leone morì cinque anni dopo, nel 1989, all’età di 60 anni, ponendo fine al rapporto tra i due artisti. Morricone ha continuato a collaborare con molti altri registi, tra cui Brian De Palma (Gli intoccabili), Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) e Franco Zeffirelli (Amleto). Ma questa “leggenda vivente”, che ha composto più di 400 colonne sonore per film e televisione, è probabilmente meglio conosciuta per la varietà di generi nel suo repertorio, che comprende opere corali, temi romantici, jazz e melodie dell’Africa. Ha ricevuto sette nomination agli Oscar per le sue colonne sonore. Infine Morricone è stato insignito della migliore colonna sonora originale nel 2016 per The Hateful Eight di Quentin Tarantino.

Sergio Leone non ha mai ricevuto un Oscar, nemmeno uno onorario. Forse è perché ha prodotto “Spaghetti Western”, quasi sempre scontati con un tono denigratorio. Forse perché un italiano ha avuto l’audacia di perfezionare un genere di Hollywood. Forse perché Hollywood era passata ai film di James Bond e ad altre cose. Ma la storia del cinema sicuramente darà credito a Leone per la sua visione innovativa in diversi generi e per aver portato le musiche di Morricone nella cultura popolare.

Posted in Abitudini, Arte, California, Film, Foto, Italia, Italiano, Musica, New York, Roma, Storia | 1 Comment

Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone

Posted on July 9, 2020 by babbityjean

Many weeks ago, I wrote this post, in which I described Ennio Morricone as “a living legend.”  On July 6, 2020, he died in Rome where he was born and lived.  He will remain a legend, and his music will live on.

They were born in Rome in the late 1920s, only three months apart.  Both had fathers in professions that would become their chosen fields, and who became their first teachers.  Neither spoke much English despite their popularity in the English-speaking world.  For a brief period, they were classmates in the same school together.  Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone eventually formed one of the best-known and exemplary collaborations between a film director and a composer in film history.

Leone began his career as an assistant to director Vittorio de Sica during the production of Bicycle Thieves in 1948.  He went on to direct epics, such as The Last Days of Pompeii and The Colossus of Rhodes.  Later, Leone turned down the offer to direct The Godfather in favor of working on a gangster story that would eventually become his masterpiece.  In the mid-60s, as audiences lost interest in historical epics, Leone turned to a genre that had intrigued him since childhood:  the American Western.

From an early age, Morricone played several instruments, most notably the trumpet.  He wrote his first compositions when he was only six years old.  As he matured, he wrote music for the theatre, as well as classical music for voice and piano.  Then he started writing and arranging music for films as a ghost writer.  Although he composed music for some Western movies, it was his arrangement of an American folk song that captured Leone’s attention.

The turning points in the careers of both Leone and Morricone came in the mid 1960s with their collaboration on A Fistful of Dollars, followed by For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The trilogy became known as the Dollars Trilogy and also as the Man With No Name Trilogy.  Each film became more financially successful and more technically accomplished than its predecessor, and each artist contributed lasting innovations to the genre.

Leone redefined the Western in plot, characterization and mood, and the American cowboy in appearance, character and motivation.  Gone are the handsome, beautifully dressed men in white hats for heroes and black hats for villains.  Leone’s characters are more realistic and complex—often “lone wolves” who are morally ambiguous.  Relationships revolved around money, power and retribution.  Violence was rampant.  Leone’s cinematography is stunning:  He often juxtaposed close-up shots of dirty, unshaven, menacing faces with lengthy long shots of the beautiful, albeit barren, land and settings of the Old West, together with beautifully framed interior shots.

Instead of orchestral arrangements that had been used in previous Westerns, Morricone used gunshots, cracking whips, whistle, voices, Jew’s harp, trumpet, and the then-new electric guitar.  His special effects punctuated the action and contributed to its visceral effect.  For Leone, the eclectic and poignant music was a protagonist in his films.  It was said that he kept scenes going because he did not want the music to end, which probably contributed to somewhat long, slow films.

After the Dollars Trilogy, Leone and Morricone collaborated on what became known as the Once Upon a Time Trilogy.  Morricone’s score for the first, Once Upon a Time in the West, is one of the best-selling original instrumental scores in the world today.  The third, Once Upon a Time in America, is Leone’s brilliant masterpiece.  Starring Robert de Niro, it is the story of gangsters and friendship in Manhattan in the years of American prohibition.

Leone died five years later in 1989 at the age of 60, ending the relationship between the two artists. Morricone went on to collaborate with many other directors, including Brian De Palma (The Untouchables), Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), and Franco Zeffirelli (Hamlet).  But this “living legend”, who has composed more than 400 scores for film and television, is probably best known for the variety of genres in his repertoire, which includes choral work, romantic themes, jazz, and the melodies of Africa.  He received seven Academy Award nominations for his film scores.  Finally, perhaps long overdue, Morricone was awarded the Best Original Music Score in 2016 for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.

Sergio Leone never received an Oscar, not even an honorary one.  Maybe it was because he produced “the Spaghetti Western,” almost always discounted with a disparaging tone.  Maybe it was because an Italian had the audacity to perfect a Hollywood standard.  Maybe it was because Hollywood had moved on to James Bond films and other fare.  But film history surely will credit Leone for his innovative vision in several genres and for bringing Morricone’s themes into popular culture.

Posted in Abitudini, Arte, California, English, Film, Foto, Italia, Musica, New York, Roma, Storia | 1 Comment