Italian
Closing concert at Palazzo Pisani for the international conference celebrating Venetian night in 19th-century painting, music, and literature.
VENICE – The international conference “Night in Venice. Perception of Self and Others in 19th-Century Painting, Music, and Literature,” conceived by art historian Claudia Denk, musicologist Richard Erkens, and Romanist Barbara Kuhn, president of the German Centre for Venetian Studies, will conclude on Thursday, October 16 with a captivating chamber concert.
The event, which explored the theme of night in 19th-century Venice through an interdisciplinary lens, will end in the Sala Malipiero of Palazzo Pisani at 7 PM with the concert entitled “To the Moon.” The program features pieces and songs by Schumann, Respighi, Mendelssohn, Gabussi, Wagner, Hahn, and others, performed by musicians Christina Baader (mezzo-soprano), Jacopo Pesiri (tenor), Andrea Marinelli (piano), Letizia Manganaro (violin), and Manuel Dal Bianco (cello). Following a musical and cultural introduction by Richard Erkens, the performers will evoke the Venetian night, conjuring atmospheres suspended between light and silence.
The concert takes place in a venue of particular historical significance: the present-day Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Music, where the painter Friedrich Nerly lived, famous for his nocturnal views of Venice. From the terrace of the building, the highest in the city, Nerly captured the moonlight illuminating rooftops and the lagoon, creating images full of poetry and introspection.
The international conference is supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for the promotion of science, which has funded projects of the German Centre for Venetian Studies for over fifty years. For the first time, the Foundation is joined on this occasion by the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, long committed to the study of Nerly. “We are particularly pleased that the German Centre for Venetian Studies is hosting a scientific conference dedicated to Nerly’s invention of the Venetian night with an interdisciplinary approach,” says Dr. Martin Hoernes, Secretary General of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.
Partners of the initiative include the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Music and the Fondazione Musei Civici Veneziani, which together help make the cultural experience complete, combining scientific research, art history, and live music.
The emblematic image of the conference is La Piazzetta al chiaro di luna (Moonlit Piazzetta, 1838) by Friedrich Nerly, housed at the Angermuseum in Erfurt, which perfectly encapsulates the magic of the Venetian night and the allure of the interdisciplinary journey explored by the conference.
Thus, the concert represents the culminating moment of an event that successfully united study, art, and music, offering both Venetian and international audiences the poetry of a city seen through the eyes and notes of its 19th-century interpreters.
