À l’ombre du Vésuve, parcours musical dans la Naples du Cinque- et du Seicento

Here is the famous Posillipo!

Here is the place where Naples, in the heat of summer, forgets all its other delights. It is only two miles from the city, and the ladies in their fine finery, as well as the most noble knights, come here to show their pomp. Locals and foreigners alike flock here to enjoy themselves, for all past troubles are forgotten in the sweetness of it. There are two very noble palaces there. One is called Mergellina.

The other is called Serena (...). Sumptuous meals and magnificent festivals are often held there, and the whole sea is alive with boats, each more magnificently decorated with flags and banners than the next (...). Often, a large number of these boats carry a large number of musicians who, with their instruments, fill the air with their music and their songs, and make the sea and the land resound with multiple harmonies.

Let us imagine for a moment this journey by boat: we are leaning against the rail in the company of these noble ladies, these beautiful knights, and fabulous musicians, we board, and transform, for a moment, our beautiful Magnin Museum into one of these marvellous palaces, for a journey through the Neapolitan music of the 16th and 17th centuries, at the time of the Spanish viceroys. A musical stroll that takes us through the streets, courtyards and palaces of Naples, discovering a lively and shimmering music: from cheerful, sad - sometimes subversive - villanelles to the tortured works of the famous Gesualdo, not forgetting the very special keyboard pieces that were in vogue in the Parthenopean city at the time.

Caravaggio and his contemporaries were the inspiration for this music, which is a perfect sound illustration of the exhibition "Naples for Passion".

https://musee-magnin.fr/agenda/evenement/5-6-et-7-mai-lombre-du-vesuve