The Art of Sounds is the title of Vincenzo Catalano’s second book published by Edizioni Radici Future Bari. The young author, using the genre of the historical-biographical essay, looks at the story of Raffaele Miglietta, master conductor and composer originally from Francavilla Fontana. Making use of documents recovered from the Central State Archive of Rome, the State Archive of Lecce and the ANRP-LeBI digitized archive, as well as with unpublished documents preserved by the Miglietta family itself such as period newspapers, letters, telegrams, medals and resolutions of the municipal council of various Apulian municipalities, the author has outlined and brought to light a completely new and surprising picture and point of view.
Raffaele Miglietta (Francavilla Fontana BR, 21 February 1919 – Corato BA, 5 December 1994) is known to most for his artistic talent and his significant experience as a director of musical bands. This is a notoriety that is due to him not only for the prizes and recognitions received in the Italian musical panorama, but also for the praise and recognition received from abroad, just remember the praise of the Kennedy family and the praise of the French city of Grenoble. This characterization, which acquires depth by looking at the Regional Law on the valorisation of the intangible cultural heritage of the Apulian band, a law which also promotes the rediscovery of the major band personalities, hides a surprising past. His past is intertwined with a strong political feeling inherited from his family of socialist ideas.
After emigrating to Rome at the age of seventeen to study at the Littorio Italian Youth Music School, Raffaele Miglietta, with the approaching winds of war, was enlisted in the Carabinieri for compulsory military service and placed stationed at the band of the Carabinieri Legion of Rome. Here various vicissitudes lead him to meet his brother Luigi, also a musician, enlisted in the same context. Two destinies that separate with the civil war, linked to the armistice of 8 September: Raffaele goes into hiding to escape the Nazi raids and, on the basis of his ideals, decides to join the resistance groups of the Army; Luigi, however, less fortunate, was captured and deported to Germany in the Stalag VII/A camp in Moosburg near Dachau. With the end of the war, Raffaele decided to undertake a career as a teacher, band director and composer, transmitting to his students that passion for music and freedom which, in his past as a fighter, meant hope for the future.
Today Raffaele Miglietta, 30 years after his death, is still remembered with great esteem and affection by the southern and Italian musical band community as well as by the city of Corato which in 2022, through the Permanent Council of Culture, proposed naming a he the Municipal Theatre.
Sunday 9 June 2024
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