Music in the museum

Bologna (Italy) has a special museum with one of the largest collections of western music-related books, instruments and paintings from around the world. It's origins were linked to a music loving priest. The building that hosts the museum also has a rich history. This photo-essay presents a virtual tour of the museum and its history.

Introduction

When I had first heard about the music museum of Bologna, I was a bit confused -.how can you put music in a museum? May be they will keep old recordings of the music, I had thought. In India, music has been exclusively an oral tradition - the different Ragas and their rules are taught from teachers to the students, but traditionally they were not written down.

In the west the earliest examples of written down music came up in 6th and 7th century when Plainchants were written for Gregorian prayers. With passing of centuries as the Gregorian chants became more complex, the accompanying music notations also evolved. The notations on five lines came up around 14th century.

With the invention of movable types printing press in the fifteenth century, carefully handwritten music notations could be mass-produced for the first time in history. That was also the period when the formal structures of what is called symphonic music and opera music were being defined in Europe and especially in Florence and Naples in Italy.

The music collection of Fr Martini

The international music museum of Bologna has the origins of its important music collection in the work of a priest called Fr Martini.

Fr Giovanni Battista Martini was born in Bologna in 1706. His father was a violinist and he studied music from a young age. He entered the Franciscan order of priests in 1722, when he was 16 years old. Three years later at the St Francis church, his music compositions received wide appreciation. Later,  in 1758 AD, Fr Martini joined the Academia Filarmonica (Philharmonic Academy) of Bologna, one of the most important music schools in Europe at that time. He was the "definitore perpetuo", the person called to resolve and decide the music related controversies, of the Academy. He had this role till 1781.

Fr Martini's fame spread fast and promising music students came to his school from different parts of Europe. For example, around 1755 Johann Christian Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, came to Fr Martini to study music. In 1770 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart took the entrance test to become a member of Academia Filarmonica.

Fr Martini hardly ever left Bologna, except for some music concerts. In 1756 AD, pope Benedict XIV asked him to transfer to Vatican to the St Peter's church, but he excused himself saying that he was not well. Yet, he was able to knit a network reaching far away parts of Europe and even outside.

Fr Martini was interested in collecting music manuscripts, the written down notations of religious music, symphonies and operas. His fame as a music teacher and his role in the prestigious Academy, helped him in writing to people and to churches all over the Europe to ask for copies of any old music notations. Many of the churches, who had their old prayer books with music notations were happy to give them to Fr Martini, in exchange for new music books. Thus the collection of Fr Martini grew.

Fr Martini wrote "The history of music", one of the most significant works on music history of its time. He was supposed to write it in five volumes. However, only three volumes of this book were published as Fr Martini died while he was writing volume four. He also wrote around 700 musical compositions.

In 1750, pope Benedict XIV had given assurance that the music collection of Fr Martini will be archived and kept safe by the church. When Fr Martini died in 1784, his music collection had around 17,000 volumes. He also collected music instruments and paintings of his students and other famous musicians.

During Fr Martini's time, Bologna was a Papal city, governed by Vatican with support of Austrian military. In 1796 when Napoleon attacked Bologna, part of those materials were taken to Austria, where they are now kept in Vienna library.

Beginnings of the Music Museum of Bologna

In 1827, Fr Martini's collection was used to set up the library of the Philharmonic academy of Bologna. In 1986, when the international music museum was set up in the Sanguinetti Palace in Bologna, the library collection of Philharmonic academy was shifted there. Sanguinetti palace underwent a long period of restoration before it was opened to public in 2004.

However, apart from Fr Martini, Bologna also had many other important music personalities, whose music related objects were part of city's heritage. Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale or the Musical Bibliographical Museum of Bologna, was founded in 1959 to hold the Comune di Bologna's collection of musical objects. It was renamed International Museum and Library of Bologna in 2004.

History of the Sanguinetti Palace

The international music museum of Bologna is located in the Sanguinetti palace, an old noble house in the city centre of Bologna. In 16th century this building belonged to Riario family.

Near the end of 18th century, when Bologna was a Papal city, Napoleon Bonaparte from France came to "liberate" Bologna. For some time, Napoleon's forces won the war and count Antonio Aldini was appointed as his Secretary of State of his Italian reign. Count Aldini came to live in this building. Many of the rooms of the palace were redecorated and symbols of Italian independence from Papal rule were painted including tricolour flags and "bands of grain" ("fasce" in Italian that were later taken over by Mussolini and gave rise to the term "fascists").

However, Napoleon's rule did not last very long and Pope's forces, supported by Austrian military, re-occupied Bologna. In 19th century, this building was bought by a well known opera tenor singer Domenico Donzelli, and some time, even famous music composer Gioacchino Rossini also lived in this building as guest of Donzelli.

Donzelli was very famous in the first half of nineteenth century and performed in operas in Naples, Paris and London. A couple of years before his death in 1873, he sold this house to another noble family - the Sanguinetti. The building was donated to the municipality of Bologna in 1986.

Frescoes of the Sanguinetti palace

Renovation of the building in the 18th century, brought many famous artists to design frescoes in this building. On the ground floor, there is a trompe d'oeil (painting for giving an optical illusion) by Luigi Busatti.

On first floor, room used for dining by count Aldini, has a magnificent example of "Boschereccia" (the forest). It was fashionable in 18th century Bologna to paint plants and trees on the wall of a room to give it the look of a garden and these rooms were called "Boschereccia". Usually these rooms were built on first floor of noble houses, because usually the families lived on this floor. The boschereccia room of Sanguinetti palace has some paintings by the young Pelagio Pelagi, who later became famous as an art collectionist and as an artist.

In other rooms of this building, while you admire the beautiful frescoes, you can still see partial signs of Napoleon's arrival and the "independence" of Bologna with the three colours of Italian flag along with bands of grain painted in different places on the roofs of the rooms (though when Papal forces retook Bologna, they had tried to cancel those frescoes).

Objects in the Music Museum

The museum gives you an opportunity to look at original music notations and books from the past 5-6 centuries, different kinds of music instruments, portraits of famous musicians, music instruments used by famous musicians (especially musicians like Rossini, who lived in Bologna).

The museum organises numerous initiatives including guided tours and music laboratories.

A visit to the museum is an opportunity to look at music in terms of its history, its academic study and its evolution.

Conclusions

The international museum of Bologna is a very special place for lovers of western classical and operistic music. In a wonderfully frescoed building steeped into history, it gives you a unique view towards the evolution of the music world over the past centuries.

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Do films influence life?

I am a big fan of Kajol (though I was a greater fan of her mom Tanuja and her aunt, Nutan). Over the years she has given some wonderful performances. I wish she would do more films.

Recently while speaking at an event Kajol said that "If you say one gets influenced watching a character, I think it's foolish. Cinema reflects society, society rarely reflects cinema .. Movies show whatever happens in the society. For instance, if a hero smokes on the screen, it is because 90 percent of the country smokes and not the other way round. It's stupid to say one gets influenced by watching on the screen."

I don't know if the news correctly reported her words, but I do not agree with Kajol here. Perhaps she can't think objectively because she is from the film industry and has biased views.

Films do influence people

I think that films and famous film stars as celebrities are very good at influencing people. If that was not true, why would companies pay millions to make them as their brand ambassadors and even more specifically, pay to have their product placements in the films? Are all marketing persons in the big companies spending their money in films without being sure that their product in the films will not have any impact on public?

From Sadhana cut hair to Rajesh Khanna style kurta to the motorbikes used by the heroes and Shatrughan Sinha and Rajnikanth's way of flipping cigarettes, all have influenced millions of persons. If you have a child at home and you have seen her dancing with the suggestive gestures of a Chikni chameli or a Badnam munni, you know that films influence people and how much!

So how much can the films influence?

I am not saying that actors and films can change the society. If only it was so easy, films could have helped us to stop female infanticide, stop dowry deaths, increase literacy, stop child labour and stop violence against women. A society takes from films the things that fit that society's values, and if it does not agree with certain things, it may not take them.

Yet, even if certain values are not taken by large parts of society, they can still promote role models and give courage to individuals to fight with the system. That is how biopics like "Bhaag milkha bhaag" or films showing independent young women who fight for their rights, inspire young men and women.

Anti-smoking guidelines for films

Kajol's argument was motivated in part by the current national guidelines that impose putting up an anti-smoking warning over the smoking scenes in films. I agree that to see such warnings while you are watching a film is distracting and a little unpleasant.

Most Bollywood films are about unbelievable characters in unbelievable situations, so there getting an intrusive reality check does not make a big difference! But occasionally in a good film, the anti-smoking warning in the middle of the scene breaks the film's spell. It takes away from the film. And this rule shoould be changed.

However, having said that, I think that film fraternity from Bollywood needs to look inside its own soul and and ask itself some honest questions. The most important question that I would like them to ask themselves is - are some Indian film-makers taking money to show smoking scenes in our films? May be not directly but indirectly?

I am asking this question since big tobacco companies did pay film-makers and actors in Hollywood to smoke. A research article on this theme that appeared in British Medical Journal wrote:

"In all, almost 200 actors took part in the cigarette endorsements, including two thirds of the top 50 box office Hollywood stars from the late 1930s through to the 1940s. Among others, actors Clark Gable, Spencer Tracey, Joan Crawford, John Wayne, Bette Davis, Betty Grable and singer Al Jolson all appeared in endorsements for brands, such as Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Chesterfield, and Camel.American Tobacco alone paid the stars who endorsed Lucky Strike cigarettes US$ 218,750 in the late 1930s, equivalent to $3.2 million in today's money. Individual stars earned up to $5,000 per year, equivalent to around $75,000 in today's money...The authors say that smoking in movies is associated with teens and young adults starting to smoke themselves, but its persistent presence in mainstream films is rooted in the mutually beneficial deals between the film and tobacco industries in the 1930s and 1940s".

This image on the left shows models trying different poses of cigarette smoking in practice for a TV ad in 1953 (picture by Peter Stackpole ) because tobacco companies wanted to promote smoking as sexy and desirable for women.

Internet is full of reports explaining how tobacco companies have ruthlessly used marketing and paid "experts" to continue to sell their products that are marketed as "feel good, enjoy life" kind of products.

Over the last decade, slowly developed countries are making it difficult for tobacco companies to expand their markets and increase profits - in many countires, percentage of smokers is decreasing. Thus, these companies have increased their efforts in developing countries. In India, reports talk of more than 100% increase in smokers over the past decade.

If you think of tobacco companies trying all kind of tricks almost 100 years ago to influence Americans, I think that today they must be trying 100 times worse tricks to influence people in developing countries! 

Role of films in not encouraging smoking

Personally I feel that certain kinds of smoking must be completely stopped from showing in films - no young hero or heroine should be shown smoking as part of school life or college life or with friends or as young professionals, where the underlying message is "smoking is cool, it is ok to smoke for having a good time". I think that India's censor board should be really strict on this, because flashing warnings over such scenes are not enough discouragement.

On the other hand, in my opinion, film makers should have their creative liberty to show smoking if people are in older age groups, or are shown as addicts or having problems or as villains or underworld dons. I think that associating smoking with negative things in films will also discourage smoking among youngsters.

However, if films show the young hero or heroine smoking as has happened in some recent films, I don't think that film-makers can justify it by saying "this scene is essential to my story". Rather, I feel that such film-makers may be taking money from cigarette companies, to do their publicity and influence young people.

Conclusions

Contrary to what Kajol says, majority of Indians do not smoke - according to a World Health Organization survey in 2009, around 12% of Indian smoked. However, that still means a large number of illness and death associated with smoking in India.

And film-makers should work with Government to work in ways that do not promote smoking among young people. Smoking by young people shown in films as "feel good, enjoy" kind of activities must stop completely.

On the other hand, smoking is part of life, to ask film makers not to show any scene with smoking is not realistic. The Government needs to stop insisting that while watching the films we get anti-smoking warnings.

Smoking is not cool, it is dead-cool!

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The book with the green cover

I finally read Jen Campbell's "Weird things customers say in bookshops". It seems that the book has had a fair bit of success. It is like reading a book of jokes and has just 56 pages, so it is very easy to read. And it made me laugh so much, and made me remember some of the not-very-intelligent things I have said while looking for books in shops!

I hate shopping, but I can spend hours in book shops and libraries. Here are 3 of my favorite "sayings" from this book. The first one is something I think that my wife can ask:

Do you have any books in this shade of green, to match the wrapping paper I've bought?

The next one is something I whole-heartedly agree with:

What's this "literary criticism" section? Is it for books that complain about other books?

This one is a bit macabre and cruel, but sometimes we can be forgetful!

Hi, I just wanted to ask did Anne Frank ever write a sequel?

And finally this one - I think that even I have asked this kind of question in book shops!

I read a book in the sixties. I don't remember the author or the title. But it was green and it made me laugh. Do you know which one I mean?

Not all of the book is really funny and some of the jokes, I just didn't get them. Like the ones about kids that run amok in shops and their parents who can't control them. I mean, that is not so funny, it is just plain stupidity of the parents. Still there were enough quips in it to make me laugh out loud, that made my wife come and ask me, "Which book is it?"

So if you can get your hands on this one, do not miss it!

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Fun in the theme parks - Mirabilandia and Oltremare

Adriatic coast of Italy, from Ravenna down to Ancona is one long stretch of seaside towns that come alive with tourists every summer. Parts of this seaside route between Savio to Riccione are the most famous and thus, most crowded. These are also the parts that are full of tourist attractions that open around the end of March and remain open till the end of tourist season in September. This post is a photoessay about two theme parks in this area - Mirabilandia in Savio and Oltremare in Riccione.

Both these theme parks have an entry ticket of around 30 Euro per person, but they have special offers for hotels-plus-entry and for families, which work out much cheaper. The tickets are valid for two consecutive days.

Mirabilandia theme park

Mirabilandia is a games and adventure theme park. It has many kinds of roller coaster rides including those that splash into water and those that run entirely in water, passing through water falls.

My favourite ride in this park is where the lift takes you up to the top of a tower and then drops you down, stopping just before you touch the ground. It brought me a big rush of adrenaline.

The park also has some cultural shows including dance and music shows, clown shows, and a film stunt show with cars and bombs.

The entry ticket covers the cost of all the rides, the only problem is due to the long queues in front of the popular rides, especially on the weekends and especially in July-August. Therefore, I prefer going there during April-May, before the tourist rush starts!

Oltremare theme park

Oltremare is a nature theme park with dolphins, fishes, birds and animals.

My favourite part of this park is the dolphin show which is simply incredible. I know some persons who do not like the idea of using living beings as part of game shows and would like to close all zoos and animal based shows. I agree with them that even with the best of conditions, an animal in captivity is never in the same condition as being free.

However, I also feel that the world is very careless towards animal lives. The human capacity for killing animals and fishes and destroying the environment in their greed for money is endless. In this situation, I feel that zoos and theme parks play a fundamental role, much more effective than all the books and films, in educating the young people about nature and environment. Thus while acknowledging that zoos and theme parks are not the best thing to happen to the animals that live inside them, I think that these are useful and  can play an important educational role.

I also love the animal theatre of Oltremare where small birds and animals are the actors.

The park also has lot of different areas for looking at close at fishes, other marine beings and animals, including farm animals.

Conclusions

I love both the theme parks, Mirabilandia and Oltremare. However, if I had to choose only one, I would choose Oltremare, since I love watching the animals. So if you are holidaying in Romagna, the Adiatric coast of Italy, find time to visit these two parks!

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20 New Stunning Flower Wallpapers

I am always on the lookout for new and beautiful wallpapers because I love changing the look of my computer screen. Spring is the time when the park is full of colours and flowers and I felt that it would be good to photograph some flowers for my wallpapers folder.

Yesterday morning I spent some time going around the park near our home in Bologna (Italy) to click pictures. So I thought that I should share the best of those images with you all.

Here are 20 of my favourite wallpaper images, completely free for you in high resolution with advance greetings of Holi, the Indian festival of colours.

Click on the picture you like and it will open a new page with that image in high resolution. You can then save it on your computer and use it as you wish!

If you do not know what are wallpapers and how to use them, click the "Wallpapers" tab above (towards the top of the blog) for instructions.

And if you like these wallpapers, do share the link of this page through Facebook, Google plus and Twitter.

I hope that you have liked these wallpapers.

Please do remember to share the link of this page through Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. And if you use any of these images on your blogs or websites, do remember to give a link to this page! Thanks in advance.

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Loving the child you didn't expect

When we dream of love and a family, we dream of children like ourselves - bright and happy, who will conquer the world and who will bring joy to our lives. What happens when the child you had dreamed about, comes out very different from your expectations?

This is the premise of Andrew Solomon's wonderful book "Far from the tree: Parents, children and the search for identity" that touches with great empathy on the journeys of a group of "different" children and their parents to reach a surprising conclusion - difficult and unexpected journeys have their own joys.

Introduction

Diversity is an indivisible part of our lives - each of us is unique, even the similar-looking twins. Yet that diversity is within some undefined limits - the seed of each plant, would come up a unique and a different tree, but it would be still like its parent plant - the seed will not fall too "far from the tree." But what happens when the seed does fall too far and the extent of diversity is too big to be ignored?

With about 650 pages of stories exploring this theme of parents and their unexpectedly diverse children (and an equal number of pages with notes and references), Solomon's book did seem a daunting tome when I began reading it. However, soon I was lost in it, often thinking of events and people from my own life and my extended family, in a new way. The book tells mainly American stories, with only a few persons from Britain or Rwanda. Yet, I could feel and share the emotional journeys of the people described in it, because even though there are social and cultural differences from the persons in other countries, the essential human emotions are still the same.

Themes of the book

The book starts and ends with two personal chapters - "Son" and "Father" - these explore the relationships between "diverse" children and their parents with a special reference to Solomon's own life, as a gay person who suffered through depression and his decision to have children while he was writing this book. These two chapters are the emotional anchoring of the book.

In between those two chapters, there are six chapters dealing with disabilities - deaf, dwarfs, down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia and other disabilities. All these chapters are about conditions that the society and the parents usually look at as "negatives". The next, chapter VIII, is about a diversity that most of us would imagine as "positive" - the child prodigies.

Then there are three more areas of "negativity" - children born of rape of their mothers, children who end up in the world of crime and children who feel imprisoned in wrong bodies - the transgender persons.

On each theme, the book tells stories - each story is told from different point of views of the persons involved in it - persons themselves, their parents, their siblings, their friends, etc. In between the stories are scattered some reflections and information about some of the key issues regarding the different dilemmas that those people face.

For example in the chapter on dwarfs, there are stories of "little people" and in between the stories, you can understand about organisations of little people, the different names they prefer to be called, their dilemmas about having children like themselves or "normal" children, how looking at them individually we tend to focus on their shortness while when they are together as a group, we can see them as individuals, the different kinds of dwarfing conditions, the long suffering for getting "elongation operations", etc.

This way of telling stories is like building a story-pyramid, where each stone shows a different facet. In the end you realize that each diversity is made of countless diversities, each is similar to others and yet unique, and that you can't take for granted anything because as human beings, we continue to surprise ourselves and others, not just with prejudice and ignorance, but also with generosity and dedication.

Comments

It was a long time since I had read a book that touched me so deeply and I would like to thank Solomon for that. Diversity surrounded me since childhood and probably that is true of everyone else as well.

Diversity raises barriers around you, I had experienced it as an immigrant in Italy - you are different from others, and in many different and subtle ways, people react differently to you. I had had long discussions about the nature of those barriers with a friend who uses a wheel chair and negotiates different kinds of barriers all the time. As a child, I had grown up with two of my aunts being "diverse" - one because she was born with a few fingers missing in a hand, and another who had small pox as a baby and carried the signs of that infection on her face. Growing up, I had seen how we all behaved differently with the deaf brother of a close friend. A few years later, first one of my school friends and then another aunt, both had had children with Down's syndrome.

I chose to work in the area of disability and community-based rehabilitation. Often I have also interviewed persons with disabilities and their families. Many of the issues about which Solomon has written in the book, were not new to me. Yet, I found the book illuminating because it went much deeper and had a more profound connection with people it talks about. I must have read countless books, articles and journals on the issue of disability, but still Solomon's book gave me new understandings.

So if you work with development issues or in a community programme, even if not specifically in a disability related programme, read this book. If you are a health professional, don't miss it. Even as human beings, I think that everyone should read it. I hope that it will be translated into other languages.

Among all the different kinds of diversities Solomon writes about, for me the most difficult part was reading about the severely autistic persons. Not to be acknowledged, not to receive even a tiny smile or a flicker of recognition in the eyes - I think that I will find that the toughest thing to bear. However, there are different stories in the book that show that when we become familiar with a person and his/her condition, we can deal with it. It is the unknown, the "other" that makes us afraid.

Solomon writes very well, his empathy makes you understand people's feelings, fears and pains, but it is only in the chapter on Prodigy, that I could appreciate the poetic beauty of his words.

For example in the story of Zhenya (Evgeny Kissin) Solomon gives a vivid understanding about his early life in a state-controlled country with his words, "The Kissins lived the life of the Soviet Jewish intelligentsia: physically uncomfortable, constantly frustrating, the pleasures of the mind partially filling in for ordinary discomforts of the flesh and ideology’s constant intrusions on the spirit."

Or, this description of Zhenya that brings him alive so beautifully, "Zhenya is too tall and too thin, with a strangely large head, enormous brown eyes, pale skin, and a mop of crazy brown hair in which you could mislay something. The overall effect is slightly gangly, and his bearing combines the tense and the beatific. Watching Zhenya sit down at the piano is like seeing a lamp plugged in: decorative though it may have seemed, only then does its real use become apparent. You feel less that he is pouring energy into the instrument than that he is receiving energy from it. “I don’t know if I would be able to live if I suddenly became unable to play,” he said. Zhenya plays as though it were a moral act that could redeem the world."

Limits of the book

In terms of the stories that Solomon presents, I think that there is an inherent bias - people who did not want to care for their "problematic" children, for whatever reason, are under-represented in this book. I think that at one level our societies ignore or actively discriminate against "different" families, but at another level, people who feel that they can't take care of their children and give them up to institutions or to foster care, are also seen negatively. We expect people to "look after whatever God has given them, even if it is a difficult task!" And, thus I think that for such people, it is very hard to overcome feelings of being judged and probably feelings of guilt, so they do not share their stories in this book.

In the Indian context (and in other developing countries), often there are no institutions or foster care where you can "give up" such children. I am sure that communities have ways of "dealing" with this issue. Thus in my work, often I did meet persons who have chosen to take care of their "different" children, but there was no way for me to meet those had made other choices. I am saying this without any intention of judging others - for poor families that struggle to survive, there are not many choices and none may be easy.

The book explains that internet has given new opportunities for "diverse" people to find others like them and to create "communities". I wonder if through internet there are groups of parents who had chosen to give away their disabled children and can find solace and understanding with each other. Their stories remain largely unknown.

I also felt not completely convinced about the chapter on the prodigies in this book. I could understand the sense of alienation of these persons and their families and the sense of their diversity, and yet, this chapter is very different from all other chapters in the book. Solomon focuses on musical prodigies and the chapter is almost halfway in the book - it comes as a relief because, for once he is not talking just about pains and difficulties, but also about common joy, success and pleasure.

Conclusions

I think that if there is only one book from 2013 that you can read, then it should be Andrew Solomon's "Far from the tree". Not just because it talks of people who face enormous challenges and find joy in those challenges. But because it makes you appreciate and understand the emotional anchors of your life and how important are the love and affection of people in our lives.

You can read more about this book and get a glimpse of many of its stories on the book's webpage. The two images used for this post are from this same webpage.

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