Viterbo – The composer Daniela Sabatini is the protagonist at San Leonardo together with her sister, the violinist Raffaella
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| Daniela Sabatini |
Viterbo – We receive and publish – “I am more than ever firmly convinced that the best homage that can be paid to Cesare Dobici is to bring him back to life in music and to make his memory always current and alive by playing and spreading his compositions throughout the world, as I have also done this with this festival of mine dedicated to him, and I hope that a theater or auditorium in his city, perhaps the Teatro dell’Unione, will soon be named after this illustrious composer, the greatest musician from Viterbo of all time”. With these words the well-known pianist, musicologist and composer Daniela Sabatini concluded on 25 April in Viterbo at the San Leonardo theater gallery the “Cesare Dobici Festival” which she conceived and directed together with her sister, the violinist Raffaella Sabatini, and whose celebratory edition it extended from last December 11th, the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, to April 25th, the 80th anniversary of his death.
A unique event of its kind in the international field, the festival culminated with a piano recital by Daniela Sabatini significantly entitled “Cesare Dobici and his contemporary composers” in which the great pianist was also active as a lecturer, skilfully alternating interesting historical-musicological references to world premiere of his piano transcriptions of Dobici’s pieces such as the famous “Hymn to S. Rosa da Viterbo” and the “Popular Melody a Maria SS. Liberatrice” and his masterful interpretations of famous pieces and musical rarities by authors such as Arnold Schoenberg (on the 150th anniversary of his birth), Giacomo Puccini and Ferruccio Busoni whose centenary of death is this year, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Karol Szymanowski, and Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis.
The recital, dedicated to the pianist Maurizio Pollini on the third anniversary of his death, ended with an exceptional non-programme: the composition “Omaggio a Cesare Dobici” by Daniela Sabatini herself, which constitutes the first ever compositional tribute paid to this great musician. Conference-concerts also organized by the Ensemble “De Musica” of the Sabatini sisters, including the inaugural one “Viterbo in the life and works of Cesare Dobici” held at the Teatro Auditorium del Murialdo, and monothematic musical events held in Rome, their adopted city of the greatest musician from Viterbo of all time, dedicated to “Cesare Dobici and his students”, “Cesare Dobici organist and composer of sacred music”, “Cesare Dobici teacher and musical treatise writer” have characterized the broad program of the Festival which is has been unanimously defined as a “unicum” in the artistic-musical field not only in Viterbo but internationally.
Maria Cristina De Luca
April 26, 2024
