Search

In the opinion of many Italians, music belongs to what is called ‘second education.’ Italians learn the basics in the few hours of musical education in elementary and high school. Yet, if they want to practice music – without becoming a conservatorio student at an early age – they must look for opportunities outside formal education, take lessons or attend evening classes in private or city schools, join a brass band or a choral confraternita, buy an instrument and learn by themselves, or watch their friends play and steal a few chops. Music has always had a paradoxical role in Italian society. Though highly prized as entertainment, intellectuals with a literary education have disregarded it for centuries as nothing more than manual practice, and we cannot say that their attitude has drastically changed in recent times. Around 1820, Stendhal observed that Italians flocked to the opera as a way to avoid conversation. The same might have been said about Germany, where the musical evenings of the bourgeoisie were often a sophisticated way to kill off any controversial topic that might arise. Yet music education in Germany has always been held in high esteem, while the Italian literary intelligentsia, especially after the Renaissance, has looked at music as an amusing accessory, ultimately too ‘popular’ to be taken seriously. If you are conversant with music, good for you. If you are not, and even if you admit your complete ignorance of it, no one will think that your education is less complete. As a result, public authorities are highly dismissive of music and are content with funding (badly) a few renowned theatres. Musicologists and music historians, on their part, are often snobbish and conservative. Luckily, someConservatori di musica are now opening up to the changes in the landscape of music and the related job market. There are some promising signs, yet for the time being ‘the most musical people in the world,’ as the stereotype goes, have very few internationally recognized orchestras and no composer that has taken up themantle of the great generation that came to the forefront in the 1950s. For lack of anything better, and just to keep the stereotype alive, the musical reputation of Italy abroad hangs largely on the latest

Viene qui esaminata la relazione tra l'osservatore e l'oggetto osservato prendendo come spunto gli osservatori progetttati e costruiti a partire dal 1981 dall'artista italiano Remo Salvadori. L'11 gennaio del 1951 tre filosofi (Alfred Jules Ayer, Georges Bataille, e Maurice Merleau-Ponty) e un fisico (Georges Ambrosino) ebbero una lunga conversazione in un bistrot parigino. L'argomento era se il sole fosse esistito prima che gli esseri umani riconoscessero la sua esistenza e lo chiamassero “sole”. Per Ayer non c'erano dubbi: poiché la veritá é indipendente dal tempo, il “sole” c'era sempre stato. L'oggetto si sposta nel tempo; non così l'osservatore (la verità). Bataille, Merleau-Ponty, e Ambrosino si dichiararono in disaccordo con Ayer: se non c'è un osservatore, non c'è nemmeno un oggetto osservato. Quasiasi “cosa” fosse il prima che gli uomini gli dessero quel nome, certamente non era il “sole”. Il linguaggio e il mondo non possono essere separati. Costruiti con la forma di un treppiede senza la macchina fotografica, gli “osservatori” di Salvadori sono la rappresentazione perfetta, e allo stesso tempo una critica sottile, dello sguardo astrattizzante e concettualizzante che “vede” la verità dell'oggetto anche senza vedere l'oggetto attuale e contingente.