Tag: italy

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Exhibition of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel coming to Wellington for Christmas

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Michelangelo Creation of Adam

MICHELANGELO – A Different View 

Tākina, 50 Cable Street

December 22 – February 8

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Sistine Chapel at the Vatican is home to one of the greatest artistic accomplishments in history. It was there in the early 16th century that Michelangelo created the brilliant religious frescoes on the ceiling telling the stories from Genesis. He also painted The Last Judgement on the altar wall, depicting the Second Coming and the Final Judgement.

While millions of viewers have visited the chapel in Rome each year it is not always the most pleasurable experience with the room  crowded with hundreds of people and a constant babble of voices. Having to crane one’s neck to see the ceiling surrounded by milling people is not the ideal way to see the work.

Now a new photographic exhibition attempts to replicate the experience with large reproduction of the Michelangelo’s ceiling and   The Last Judgement. The exhibition was shown in Auckland three years ago, attracting large numbers interested in the religious, art and historical significance of the works..

The exhibition has used state-of-the-art technology to reproduce photographs taken of the artworks following recent restorations

The printing techniques used have been able to  reproduce the colours, the details and  brushstrokes, even compensating for the curved nature of some of the paintings

The reproduction 4.6 metres by 20 metres –  about half the size of the actual ceiling but up close the images provide a new experience.

The image of the ceiling is laid out on the floor and adjacent to it is a viewing platform which provides a view which in many ways is better than the original. Even if you have seen the original this is a different experience as you can see the detail of the work and appreciate the overall design as well the juxtaposition of figures and colours.

Many of the smaller elements of the work which are hardly visible when standing in the chapel such as the small bronze-coloured medallions but these are clear now and add another level of complexity and  understanding to the work.

For many the work will be a religious experience seeing the stories from the Bible brought to life on a grand scale. For others it will be an admiration of the originality and skill displayed by the artist along with an appreciation of the working conditions he faced in creating the works.

Michelangelo, The Last Judgement

On the Sistine Chapel ceiling he painted his complex telling the story of the Creation according to Genesis, the beginning of the world. Then in the Last Judgment he presents the end of the world when the godly are separated from the ungodly. Here the scene is presided over, not by the old, bearded god of the ceiling but by a youthful dynamic figure. Michelangelo also included a self-portrait – a flayed skin  which is something of a metaphor of the artist who considered himself to have been eviscerated by the whole painterly journey.

The ceiling painting is a stunning example of trompe l’oeil with the painter creating an illusory architecture with marble putti supporting a cornice on whose regularly placed outcrops are stone seats on which, nude figures are seated along with images of major Prophets and Sibyls seated on monumental thrones .

Michelangelo, Delphic Sibyl

Michelangelo had a difficult task in reconciling the ideas of Renaissance Humanism with the theology of 16th century Christianity. This was because the Church emphasized Man as essentially sinful and flawed, while Michelangelo was focused on Man’s beauty and nobility. The  two views were irreconcilable and led to later problems such as the nudes of the Last Judgment having drapery painted over their testicles after the artists death.

For Michelangelo it was the creation  of the  human body which was paramount. In his depiction of the creation of Adam it is not so much the creation of a man but the creation of a body and this awe in the beauty of the human body is repeated in many of the figures both naked and clothed

Prior to the Renaissance images of God were rare and generally symbolic. In the early Renaissance such image depicted a patriarchal God the Father as an old man, usually with a long beard. Michelangelo’s image of God saw him with almost human qualities. In the second scene, the Creator is fully defined and heroic and we even see a rear view of him with his buttocks visible through purple drapery.

Also included in the exhibition are images of   the lower frescoes in the chapel. Often given less prominence these wall paintings by several artists including Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandio and Matteo da Lecce depict the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ. They were all  completed in twenty-five years before Michelangelo began work on the ceiling.

They are impressive  paintings but do not have the same power as those of the Michelangelo works Rather than just tell stories he attempted to create emotional responses through the power of gesture.

Many of these artists were showing off their draughting and painterly skills using the relatively new ideas of perspective with Perugino’s Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter being a fine example. Michelangelo does not use these techniques instead using his knowledge of anatomy to create tactile human figure in three dimensions.

When one compares the naked torsos in The Disputation over Moses’ Body by Matteo da Lecce. with those of Michelangelo’s one can see his consummate understanding of the human figure.

Important to an understanding of the paingtings is the role that the Pope Julius II played in commissioning the works. He was a warrior pope and he chose his papal name not in honour of Pope Julius I but in emulation of Julius Caesar. He was one of the great pre reformation humanists seeing links between the Ancient Greeks and this can be seen in other works he commissioned by Raphael  such as  The School of Athens (also in the Vatican) being painted at the same time as Michelangelo was working on the  Sistine ceiling

Like Julius the individuals faces portrayed are bold and dramatic and filled with energy. Compared to the figures in the lower frescoes these are strong personalities which speak of the need for militant Christians, not the softer versions of the lower frescoes.

Michelangelo’s inventiveness can be seen  in the figures he creates. He has used the faces of ordinary people. He probably used the faces of people he saw in the streets or in the church not the stereotypes normally used. These figures are men and women who walked the streets of the sixteenth century Rome.

Michelangelo’s masterpiece combines the worlds of art, religion, science, and faith in a provocative and awe-inspiring work of art.

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The APO’s captivating musical tour of Rome

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Trevi Fountain

The Eternal City

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Auckland Town Hall

June 13

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Respighi’s Roman Trilogy takes the listener on a musical tour of Rome with three tone poems which celebrate the city’s fountains, pines and festivals. Along  the way we encounter the architecture, landscape and history  of the city with vibrant music which capture its moods, sounds and spectacles.

The three works were composed over a twelve-year period 1916 – 1928 and the APO presented the three works under the title of The Eternal City.

The programme opened with  Fountains of Rome, the purpose of which the composer said was “to give expression to the sentiments and visions suggested . . . by four of Rome’s fountains, contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer.”

In this work we encounter some of the smaller fountains like the one by the Villa Medici as well as the extravagant Trevi Fountain.

The first part of the work, inspired by the Fountain of Valle Giulia, depicted a pastoral landscape and  captured the early Romas  dawn with the strings and woodwinds.

This was followed by a sudden loud blast of the brass and percussion above the shrill tones of the orchestra, introducing the Triton who raises a conch to his lips and we also hear the sounds of activity around the fountain.


Next, he depicts The Trevi Fountain at midday, the theme, passing from the woodwind to the brass instruments, with the trumpets depicting the dramatic figure of  Neptune,  seahorses and another Triton blowing a conch shell, the sounds of which were depicted by the orchestra’s horns.



The fourth section depicting the Villa Medici Fountain at sunset captures the fading grandeur of the city with is a nostalgic theme and we hear the tolling of bells above the whispering strings of birds twittering.

The work which features much brass and percussion shows us a panoramic Rome filled with a sensory overload of excitement and activity.

The music captures the flow of water from a trickle to torrents with instruments providing flecks of light intermingled in the sprays of water.

The Pines of Rome

The second work, The Pines of Rome had an animated opening with a depiction of the trees around the Villa Borghese mixed  with the sounds of the city. The depiction then moves to the outer areas of the  city with a  melancholic mood in the area of  the catacombs highlighted with hints of the Latin mass .

The pines on the Janiculum Hill were introduced with timpani and gongs, giving a spacious vision, the trees picked out by the piano and clarinet. As though taking its cue from the clarinet comes a recording of a nightingale seeping into the hall only to disappear with the coming of night and the brooding sounds of the ghosts of centurions returning on the Appian Way. These sounds initially seem distant but then as the orchestra’s voice increases a sextet of brass instrument up by the organ let loose some triumphal sounds conveying the drama of Roman pomp and power.

A Roman Carnival

The third of the works “Roman Festivals” opens with  the same dramatic sounds which featured in the depiction of the Appian way. Here the triumphal sounds become the sounds of gladiatorial combat. After this overexcited opening there were some lovely, lethargic orchestral sounds with echoing strings. In the middle sections the music conveys all the excitement, colours and movement of the community festivals. Here conductor Bellincampi was agile in stressing both  the  clamorous sounds as well as the gentler ones.

The final movement featured a strong, slightly discordant section which morphed into  a folksy romanticism which included a mandolin-like sequence, before moving onto  some circus sounds which recall the cinematic compositions of  Nino Rota and his music for Fellini’s 8½ .The final movement ended with some thunderous sounds from the massed orchestra and  percussion, bringing to an end to a  entertaining journey.

The concert featured a number of musicians from the Australian National Academy of Music , as part of an ongoing collaboration with the APO. 

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Reviews, News and Commentary

The APO’s colourful “Italian Style”

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Franz Schubert View of Florence

In the Italian Style

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Auckland  Town Hall

February 29

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

In the early nineteenth century it was fashionable to do a Grand Tour with Italy as the prime destination. Artists, writers and composers all sought to travel there to find inspiration.

The APO’s “In The Italian Style” presented works by three composers who were themselves were enthralled by various aspects of Italian music, history and landscape.

The first work on the programme was Schubert’s Overture in C “In the Italian Style” which was not a response to Italy itself but rather to the interest in Italian music at the time , notably the exoticism  of Rossini.  Schubert’s impressionist depiction of Italy conveys images of street life, dances and the leisurely stroll through classical  ruins captures the energy, colours and contrasts of his invented Italy which is a measure of the composer’s ability to convey images and sight he had never seen. The work also shows the young eighteen-year-old trying to move his compositions out of the traditions of Viennese music  of the time.

Mendelssohn was twenty-one when he travelled to Italy where he was captivated  by the art, architecture and landscape. When he was given a commission, he used his impressions of the country as the basis of his Symphony No 4 “The Italian”. While he had been despairing of Italian concert music, he was taken with local Neapolitan folk dance styles like the saltarello. This influence is seen in the final wild, breakneck movement which captures the drama of the dance and Mendelssohn’s vision of Italy.

The first three movements were filled with dramatic contrasts,-  massive sounds  which suggested the grandeur of the Alps as well as softer sounds which evoked contemplation  of art works and architecture.

Conductor Giordana Bellincampi displayed his astute conducting skills throughout the concert, at times creating dynamic waves of sound while at other times having orchestra whisper as in the opening of the second movement which depicts dawn breaking with bursts of sunlight. 

The major work on the programme was Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy with Robert Ashworth and his viola taking on the  character of Harold, the heroic figure based loosely on Byron’s Childe Harold, a wanderer who observes scenes of Italian life.

The four movements depicting outdoor scenes from various parts of the country were all derived from the composer’s experiences while travelling in Italy.

While the work is the composer’s personal response to Italy there seem to be reference to Byron’s epic poem throughout the work as in the references to Florence, its landscape and history.

A softer feeling for her fairy halls.

   Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps

   Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps

   To laughing life, with her redundant horn.

   Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps,

   Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,

And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.

Berlioz infuses his music with evocative imagery – the drama of the mountains, the softness of the light and the richness of the country’s art and history.

Robert Ashworth’s muted viola sounds helped paint an initial picture of the world-weary traveller but there were also touches of wonderment, solitude and merriment conveyed by his instrument.

Much of the time Ashworth played as though part of the orchestra, his sounds nestling in the luxurious colours of the orchestra but then there would come passages of sheer exuberance and his playing would rise above the orchestra akin to the emotional outbursts of  Harlod himself in his reactions to scenes and events.

Ashworth himself was attentive to the conductor but also the orchestra and he followed their playing intensely, as though he were Harold witnessing a new spectacle.

There was a clever bit theatricality at the close of the work as Ashworth exited the stage to reappear a few minutes later up by the organ where he was joined by a string trio to play the final moments of the work.

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