Heavy artillery

There are instruments which, in the collective imagination, immediately evoke power, solemnity and sonic grandeur. Brass instruments belong to this category. And yet, when they are played by the musicians of the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, everything changes: strength becomes elegance, brilliance becomes colour, and virtuosity becomes musical theatre.

This is where the meaning of this concert begins. A programme that moves through distant worlds — Italian Belcanto, chamber Romanticism, Puccinian melodrama and the American musical — while always preserving the same central idea: a sound capable of being monumental and extraordinarily light at the same time.

In the Villa Rusca Park in Cureglia, immersed in the evening quiet and in the historic greenery surrounding the nineteenth-century neoclassical villa, the brass instruments become almost architectural material. Melodic lines expand into the open space, timbres reflect into the silence of the night, and the concert takes on something profoundly theatrical, even without stage or words.

The opening with the Sinfonia from Norma by Vincenzo Bellini immediately introduces this dual soul of the programme. On one side, the nobility of great Italian opera; on the other, the ability of brass instruments to transform orchestral writing into a broad, luminous and surprisingly lyrical gesture. In Bellini, everything originates from the voice, from the purity of melodic line, and precisely this quality emerges powerfully in the brass quintet transcription: phrasing breathes, stretches and suspends itself, transforming sound into a vast theatrical arch.

After this solemn and dramatic opening, the Quintet by Viktor Ewald represents one of the most important works in the chamber repertoire for brass. Here there is no heaviness whatsoever. The instruments pursue one another naturally, support one another and breathe together. It is music built more upon colour and the quality of resonance than upon spectacular effect, transforming the quintet into a single sonic organism filled with warmth and refinement.

After the interval, theatre suddenly returns to the centre of the stage with Giacomo Puccini. The Fantasy from Tosca condenses all the emotional force of Italian opera: passion, tension, jealousy, lyricism and tragedy continuously flow through the music with almost physical immediacy. The brass instruments amplify this dramatic character without ever losing flexibility and cantabile expression, alternating solemn moments with unexpectedly intimate and melancholic openings.

But it is above all in the conclusion with Leonard Bernstein that the programme reveals its most spectacular soul. The Suite from West Side Story transports the audience into an entirely different universe: that of the modern city, jazz, dance and the American musical. Overwhelming rhythms, famous melodies and continuous theatrical flashes transform the quintet into something that constantly transcends the limits of the traditional chamber ensemble.

The protagonists of the evening are the Brass Quintet of the Teatro alla Scala di Milano, official ensemble of the celebrated Milanese theatre. The group brings with it not only the musical excellence of one of the world’s most prestigious institutions, but also that Italian theatrical tradition capable of transforming every phrase into narrative, every breath into scenic tension and every concert into a living experience. This evening thus becomes a tribute to musical theatre in its most diverse forms, in a continuous balance between sonic power and expressive lightness.

BIOGRAPHY

Brass Quintet of Teatro alla Scala
Founded in 2004, the Brass Quintet of Teatro alla Scala brings together musicians from the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala in Milan in a chamber formation devoted to the brass repertoire. The ensemble combines original compositions with transcriptions ranging from Bach to Bernstein and performs regularly in Italy and abroad. The variety of the repertoire and the long orchestral experience of its members allow the quintet to approach programmes ranging from musical theatre to chamber music.