CATANIA, ITALY

Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea. It is the capital of the Metropolitan City of Catania, one of the ten biggest cities in Italy, and the seventh largest metropolitan area in Italy. The population of the city proper is 315,601 while the population of the conurbation is estimated to be 767,003. The metropolitan area has 1,115,310 inhabitants.

Catania is well known for its historical earthquakes, having been destroyed by catastrophic earthquakes in 1169 and 1693, and for several volcanic eruptions from the neighbouring Mount Etna, the most violent of which was in 1669.

Catania has had a long and eventful history, having been founded in the 8th century BC. In 1434, the first university in Sicily was founded in the city. In the 14th century and into the Renaissance period, Catania was one of Italy's most important cultural, artistic and political centres. The city has a rich culture and history, hosting many museums, restaurants, churches, parks and theatres. Catania is well known for its street food.

The opera composer Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835) was born in Catania, and a museum exists at his birthplace. The Teatro Massimo "Vincenzo Bellini" (in the photo below), which opened in 1890, is named after the composer. The opera house presents a variety of operas through a season, which run from December to May, many of which are the work of Bellini.

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ORCHESTRA

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, brass instruments such as the horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba, woodwinds such as the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, and percussion instruments such as the timpani, bass drum, triangle, snare drum and cymbals, each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called a symphony orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of musicians employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played and the size of the venue. The term chamber orchestra (and sometimes concert orchestra) usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer. Orchestras that specialise in the Baroque music of, for example, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, or Classical repertoire, such as that of Haydn and Mozart, tend to be smaller than orchestras performing a Romantic music repertoire, such as the symphonies of Johannes Brahms.

The typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras (of as many as 120 players) called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, often made easier for the musicians to see by use of a conductor's baton. The conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The conductor also prepares the orchestra by leading rehearsals before the public concert, in which the conductor provides instructions to the musicians on their interpretation of the music being performed.

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Here is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, playing 'Jupiter' from Gustav Holst's 'The Planets' suite, led by maestro Cristian Măcelaru, guest conductor.

MEXICAN MARIONETTES

Mexican marionettes making mellow mariachi music & meditating mortality...

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
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QUARTET

A string quartet is a musical ensemble consisting of four string players – two violin players, a viola player and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group. The string quartet is one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in classical music, with most major composers, from the mid 18th century onwards, writing string quartets.

The string quartet was developed into its current form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, with his works in the 1750s establishing the genre. Ever since Haydn's day the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form and represents one of the true tests of the composer's art. With four parts to play with, a composer working in anything like the classical key system has enough lines to fashion a full argument, but none to spare for padding. The closely related characters of the four instruments, moreover, while they cover in combination an ample compass of pitch, do not lend themselves to indulgence in purely colouristic effects.

Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert following Haydn in each writing a number of quartets. A slight slackening in the pace of quartet composition occurred in the later 19th century, in part due to a movement away from classical forms by composers such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Then it received a resurgence in the 20th Century with the Second Viennese School, Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich and Elliott Carter producing highly regarded examples of the genre. In the 21st century it remains an important and refined musical form.

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Here is Alexander Borodin's String Quartet No 1, performed by the Moscow String Quartet.

MUSIC 4 - BUSKERS

Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is practiced all over the world and dates back to antiquity. People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers.

Performances are anything that people find entertaining. Performers may do acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performance, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, and ventriloquism.

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MUSIC

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
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and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

TREASURES FROM TRASH

“Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.” - Billy Graham

Every so often one reads a snippet in the news, or sees something on the internet and is struck by its contents. This happened to me the other day when I read about the “Landfill Harmonic Orchestra” of Paraguay (La Armonía del Vertedero - Orquesta de Instrumentos Reciclados de Cateura). This was a poignant and inspiring video that made me stop, think and recontextualise my everyday existence and the “problems” I deal with every day.

The Landfill Orchestra is a children’s music group in Cateura, Paraguay, whose instruments are made from trash that has been dumped in the landfill.  A cello made from an oil can and pieces of wood, that were thrown in the rubbish; a saxophone made of spoons and buttons, violins made of tin cans and pieces of thrown-away wood. These instruments are made by Nicolas, a “recycler” who has no previous experience making musical instruments. He is like many others in Cateura who live a hand-to-mouth existence, sorting through trash and recycling in the slum by the garbage dump in Cateura.

Inspired by this initiative and resourcefulness in the face of adversity, Maestro Luis Szaran, director of “Sounds of the Earth” formed the “recycled orchestra” comprising children living near the rubbish dump. The guiding light of these children is hope and the inspiration to become better people. Making music with their recycled instruments teaches them to be good people not only to be musicians. To work together in order to make order out of chaos, pleasure out of pain, companionship out of isolation, creativity out of destruction and peace out of strife is a means of building a better world for themselves.

This group is worthy of support and encouragement. You can do this in a very real and substantive manner – visit their YouTube channel to find out how.

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MUSIC FOR VIOLIN

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and also part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

CHOPIN STATUE

The Chopin Statue is a large bronze statue of Frédéric Chopin that now stands in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths Park aka Łazienki Park, adjacent to Aleje Ujazdowskie (Ujazdów Avenue). It was designed in 1907 by Wacław Szymanowski for its planned erection on the centenary of Chopin's birth in 1910, but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I. The statue was finally cast and erected in 1926.

During World War II, the statue was destroyed by the occupying Germans on May 31, 1940. According to local legend, the next day a handwritten sign was found at the site which read: "I don’t know who destroyed me, but I know why: So that I won’t play the funeral march for your leader." The original mould for the statue, which had survived the war, made it possible to cast a replica, which was placed at the original site in 1958. At the statue's base, since 1959, on summer Sunday afternoons are performed free piano recitals of Chopin's compositions. The stylised willow over Chopin's seated figure echoes a pianist's hand and fingers.

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And here is Vladimir Horowitz playing Chopin's Polonaise Op. 53 in A flat major for you!

SPRING FLOWERS

Spring

Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
And murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring,
Roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence,
And the birds take up their charming songs once more.

On the flower-strewn meadow,
With leafy branches rustling overhead,
The goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes,
Nymphs and shepherds lightly dance
Beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

This is the Sonnet that inspired Vivaldi to write his Spring Concerto. The sonnet is thought to have been written by the composer himself and the intimate relationship between music and the sonnet has contributed to the success of the Four Seasons concerti.

Here are some photos of Spring flowers, which are glorious at the moment.

Cyclamens brighten up the garden from late winter. Cyclamen is a genus of 23 species of perennials growing from tubers, valued for their flowers with upswept petals and variably patterned leaves. Cyclamen species are native from Europe and the Mediterranean region east to Iran, with one species in Somalia. The large ornamental plants are cultivars of Cyclamen persicum.

The common bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta; syn. Endymion non-scriptum, Scilla non-scripta, Agraphis nutans) is a spring-flowering bulbous perennial plant. Its cheery blue flowers light up dark corners of the garden.

Japonica, or Chaenomeles is a genus of three species of deciduous spiny shrubs, usually 1–3 m tall, in the family Rosaceae. They are native to eastern Asia in Japan, China and Korea. These plants are related to the Quince (Cydonia oblonga) and the Chinese Quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis). This is Chaenomeles x superba. 

This brilliantly coloured Spring harbinger is the flowering form of (cultivated) Primula commonly known as polyanthus (P. elatior hybrids).

This is the cineraria (Senecio cruentus) a highly ornamental plant that has been developed by florists from species of the genus Senecio or related genera in the composite family Asteraceae. There are two distinct types: the garden species, especially dusty miller (S. cineraria); and the greenhouse varieties of S. cruentus, commonly referred to simply as cinerarias. Greenhouse cinerarias may be dwarf, compact-growing plants with large flowers in dense clusters, or taller plants with larger, more spreading clusters of small star-shaped flowers. Both types are easily grown from seed and are sold commercially as potted plants in a variety of colours, such as this blue shade here.

Prunus cerasifera, or cherry plum is a popular ornamental tree for garden and landscaping use, grown for its very early flowering and its ornamental purple or reddish-brown leaves.

Dietes iridioides, or fortnight lily, is a native of South Africa that is grown extensively in Australia, often in large clumps on nature strips and in parks. The flowers are large and showy but last only a single day.

Calendula officinalis (pot marigold) is a plant in the family Asteraceae. It is probably native to southern Europe though its long history of cultivation makes its precise origin unknown, and may possibly be of garden origin. It is also widely naturalised further north in Europe (north to southern England) and elsewhere in warm temperate regions of the world. Its generic name indicates its long flowering period, ostensibly on the calends of every month of the year in warm regions!

Magnolia liliiflora (variously known by many names, including Mulan magnolia, Purple magnolia, Red magnolia, Lily magnolia, Tulip magnolia, Jane magnolia and Woody-orchid) is a small tree native to southwest China (in Sichuan and Yunnan), but cultivated for centuries elsewhere in China and also Japan. It was first introduced to English-speaking countries from cultivated Japanese origins, and is thus also sometimes called Japanese magnolia, though it is not native to Japan. It is now also planted as an ornamental in Australia, Africa, North America and Europe, though rather less often than its popular hybrids.

Alyogyne huegelii (native hibiscus) is a flowering plant found in the Southwest botanical province of Western Australia, extending along its entire coastline. A large flowered shrub, the species favours the sands of coastal shrublands and heath. The large flower, highly variable in colour, is similar to that of Hibiscus. It was previously placed in that genus, and is commonly named Lilac Hibiscus. It is widely cultivated as a flowering plant for the garden.

Clivia miniata or Kaffir lily is a South African native and grow in most areas of Australia - from Tasmania to the Tropics. It is a hardy plant that is almost unkillable and has large clusters of orange or yellow flowers.

The Mexican Orange Blossom (Choisya ternata) is a fully hardy evergreen shrub. This is an excellent choice of shrub for any size of garden and requires almost no attention other than a yearly prune to shape. Clusters of small white flowers cover it from Spring to early summer.

Helleborus niger, commonly called Christmas rose or black hellebore, is an evergreen perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. It is poisonous. Although the flowers resemble wild roses (and despite its common name), Christmas rose does not belong to the rose family (Rosaceae). Numerous cultivars exist and flower from winter to spring.

Hyacinthus orientalis (Common Hyacinth, Garden Hyacinth or Dutch Hyacinth), is a perennial flowering plant, native to southwestern Asia, southern and central Turkey, northwestern Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel. It was introduced to Europe in the 16th century. it is a common garden plant and often grown indoors in bulb jars or pots so its fragrant blooms will perfume the early spring.

The camellias belong to a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are native to eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalaya east to Korea and Indonesia. There are 100–250 described species, with some controversy over the exact number. The genus was named by Linnaeus after the Jesuit botanist Georg Joseph Kamel from Brno, who worked in the Philippines, though he never described a camellia.

Veronica chamaedrys (Germander Speedwell, Bird's-eye Speedwell) is a species of Veronica, native to Europe and northern Asia. It is found on other continents as an introduced species. It is a herbaceous perennial plant with hairy stems and leaves. It can grow to 25 cm tall, but is normally about 12 cm tall. The flowers are blue, with a four-lobed corolla. The form of the leaves are similar to white deadnettle. The 2 to 4 mm wide blossoms of this plant wilt very quickly upon picking, which has given it the ironic name "Männertreu", or "men's faithfulness" in German.

Taraxacum officinale, the Common Dandelion (often simply called "dandelion"), is a herbaceous perennial plant of the family Asteraceae (Compositae). It can be found growing in temperate regions of the world, in lawns, on roadsides, on disturbed banks and shores of water ways, and other areas with moist soils. T. officinale is considered a weedy species, especially in lawns and along roadsides, but it is sometimes used as a medical herb and in food preparation. As a nearly cosmopolitan weed, Dandelion is best known for its yellow flower heads that turn into round balls of silver tufted fruits that blow away on the wind.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) depleted seed heads thrusting up into the sky. 

A clump of Cotyledon orbiculata plants, known commonly as "pigs' ears". A native of South Africa it is grown widely int eh temperate regions of Australia and rewards gardeners with beautiful displays of flowers.

A bee feasting on the nectar of Hebe flowers.

Beautifully scented masses of Clematis flowers that quickly climb up any support.

Lavandula stoechas or Italian Lavender is a frost hardy evergreen and compact little shrub up to 60 cm tall. It is covered in purple pink flower spikes from spring until late autumn. Also grown for essential oils, this type of lavender needs a sunny position with well drained garden soil. 

The lemon tree full of blossoms, ripe fruit and small green lemons. The scent of the lemon flowers is wonderful, justifying their widespread use in perfumery.

Aquilegia vulgaris (European Columbine, Common Columbine or Granny's Nightcap) is a species of columbine native to Europe. The genus name Aquilegia is derived from the Latin word for eagle (aquila), because the shape of the flower petals are said to resemble an eagle's claw. There are many showy cultivars, like this two-toned one.

Miniature daffodils are a good addition to the front of the bulb border, in clumps around garden beds or lawns, or grown in pots. Miniature daffodils have been bred to emphasise the special characteristics of the smaller growing species of daffodil (Narcissus).

Bellis perennis is a common European species of Daisy, often considered the archetypal species of that name. Many related plants also share the name "Daisy", so to distinguish this species from other daisies it is sometimes qualified as Common Daisy, Lawn Daisy or occasionally English daisy. It is native to western, central and northern Europe. The species is widely naturalised in Australia, North America, Africa  and also in South America. A common belief is that Spring has not sprung unless you can step on more than 12 daisies with each foot. Spring is here!

For more pictures of Spring flowers in our garden, see my later blog entry here.

And here is Vivaldi's Spring Concerto:

 Enjoy the season!