Scuola di Musica di Fiesole
La Festa della musica
Comitato Nazionale per le celebrazioni del centenario della nascita di Piero Farulli
Dedication:
The Fiesole Music Festival. It is difficult to imagine a more extraordinary living monument than this for anyone who has dedicated his life to music and who has tried to help it become the daily bread for thousands of kids, and even succeeding. Because this ritual — this vibrant parade of music and notes, this great musical marathon, the moment of joy and nightmares for the young and old, the event that marks the end and prepares the new beginning, where those who don’t come run the risk of being disinherited from the order of the Fiesolans and who will never be able to say “I was there and I had to be there” (and if you weren’t there you regretted it) — fully embodies the spirit of Maestro Farulli along with his School and music-making.
That’s because the Music Festival, like all festivals, is a concerted effort, prepared together and sweated together, from sunrise to sunset, with rain and sunshine, sweat and fury. The playing is scheduled, planned down to the minute but never respected, and then you have to improvise fearlessly and not give up, because the Music and the Festivities are serious things and must be prepared with care, out of respect for those who listen to you and out for respect for yourself, the player, because in the end, you play for yourself and for those musician brothers who surround you that day. Yes, the Music Festival is precisely a living monument to Piero Farulli, to the Maestrone or “master teacher” as his pupils who have since become teachers call him. Even though I never knew him or saw him at work in the halls of this school, when the Music Festival happens, I see Piero wandering from room to room to encourage and check on the players, to spur them on, listen to them and swear, picking up his pace on the grounds, but happy with his creation, his army, his brilliant and revolutionary mission. We’re now 100 years from his birth and I don’t know how many years the Music Festival has been around, but as long as it is alive, the Maestro will be there, too, as will his School and the labors and joys of being together, of playing and living as if they were one and the same. Lorenzo Cinatti
