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HAPPENED TODAY - On April 3, 1897, the composer, pianist and conductor Johannes Brahms died in Vienna

On July 25, 1883, the pianist and composer Alfredo Casella was born in Turin. MyCello remembers him by proposing a music video and the score of his Italia, Op.11.

In Cremona, in one of the Cremona Musica stands, I meet Giuliano Zugliani, Forest Inspector and commander of the Paneveggio State Forest, in the Autonomous Province of Trento. Behind him, beautiful photos of trees and mountains. I introduce myself and then ask him for some information on the characteristics of this very special forest. He gladly answers my questions.
First of all, where is the Paneveggio Forest located, and what are its characteristics?
The Paneveggio Forest, also known as the “Foresta dei violini”, is located in Trentino at the foot of the Pale di San Martino. The Forest extends for 5000 hectares, 3000 hectares of which are wood. The remaining territory is occupied by pastures, alpine tundra, and rocky walls of the mountains that surround it. The Forest is composed entirely of conifers, with more than 90% of spruce and the remaining 10% of larch and pine. From an altimetric point of view, the Forest develops between 1500 and 2000 meters of altitude, so it is considered a subalpine forest and, given its continental-type climate, here the spruce, which dominates in an unchallenged way, finds its best climatic conditions. Us foresters manage the forest following the criteria dictated by naturalistic forestry. The choice of trees to be cut is made by trying to favor mainly natural renewal, favoring the growth of plants with better genetic characteristics and creating a forest structure as diversified as possible, with groups of plants of different ages and, where possible, a mixture between different species.
The “older” trees also reach 200/250 years, and they are the great-grandparents of the forest but, next to them, there are the grandparent trees, adults, young people, adolescents, children, and babies. Exactly as it happens in a family. There is the tree that was born in a particularly “happy” position, which grows straight and strong and lives very long, and the one that has had the misfortune of being born from a seed that has slipped between two rocks, which grows exposed to the winds and bringing in its twisted trunk the signs of the hard struggle it has fought to survive, but in a stable forest ecosystem and in ecological balance both plants are important. The functions of the forest are the most disparate and not only the economic ones, ranging from soil protection to the recreational landscape function to that of giving us oxygen and fixing carbon dioxide and, not least, the cultural one: more and more in the wood becomes culture, through guided tours, conferences, and in recent years also concerts, to highlight one of the outstanding products of this Forest, resonant spruce wood.

But then does the forest not only have an economic function? It is, therefore, similar to a large family of trees, where life takes place as in a community; do adult trees protect help, and defend smaller ones?
Certainly, the trees that form a natural forest live forming more or less large families, which we foresters call “collectives” and “micro collectives” according to their size. These tree communities interact with each other through the root system, which favors their stability and the exchange of nutrients, at the same time, by combining their foliage, they form a single large crown that protects them from the wind and a load of snow in winter. The forest is a complex, magical, and wonderful environment. We foresters are aware of this and are proud to know almost every aspect of it.

These trees also grow at high altitudes, in this Forest the vegetative season is rather short. How do the climate and the morphology of the territory influence the rhythms of their growth?
In the Paneveggio Forest, the vegetative season generally goes from May to September. In this period the trees carry out their vegetative functions to the maximum, grow, produce flowers, reproduce, and finally release their seeds. In the remaining months of the year, the plants are like in a kind of lethargy, the lymph circulation decreases and all vital functions slow down. However, the short vegetative period favors the formation of very tight growth rings, a peculiar technological characteristic for having excellent wood for violin making. A famous German saying states that “there is no music without the mountain forest” and this is certainly true if referred to our Forest.

When men discovered that these trees had characteristics different from those of other trees, and started using them to build musical instruments?
Certainly in the XVII sec.: the great Cremona master violin makers knew the characteristics of wood from this forest from this valley and used it for the construction of their best musical instruments. It is said that Stradivarius came here in person to choose the trees, but it is almost certainly a legend. At that time, the timber was brought to the valleys and the plain by floating on the streams and then the rivers. Certainly, many famous instruments, from dendrochronological analyses performed on them, have been built with this light, elastic, and defect-free wood. This means that, since then, thousands of luthiers have continued to use this wood for the excellence of its technological features.

But are the spruce trees that grow here all “resonant trees”? What is the best part of a tree?
Certainly not. Resonance trees are a small percentage, about 1% of the plants that are cut. The largest quantity of wood produced is used in other sectors such as carpentry, industry, and other uses. Every year part of the wood destined for violin making is sold to sellers of precious woods; a large quantity instead is processed directly by us and sold directly to luthiers from all over the world. Normally the best woods are obtained from the basal part of a plant. The characteristics that a good resonance wood must have are the complete absence of defects (the presence of knots, compression, and traction wood), having contained and regular growths, the straight fiber. The added value that our wood has is lightness and an excellent elastic modulus.

Has the forest always been managed by man?
From some documents, it is clear that the Forest was known and managed already in the Middle Ages, then passed ownership of the Counts of Tyrol, and finally, until 1918, the house of Austria was the owner. During the First World War, some areas of the Forest were the scene of fighting. In those years, for war purposes, almost a million trees were felled (more or less those that, with the current management, fell in 25-30 years) creating large openings in the woods. Fortunately, in the years following the war, great reforestation works began, rebuilding the wood we visit today.

I see… then there was the disaster caused by the wind in October 2018. And now? How is the situation?
The Forest of Paneveggio, last autumn, was hit hard by hurricane “Vaia”. Some sectors of the forest are completely destroyed and an estimate is calculated that about 10-12 annual revivals (about 60-70 thousand cubic meters) have been eradicated. Immediately after the event, it was a struggle against time, to remove fallen trees and thus prevent pests such as the Bark beetle from proliferating in the warmer months, and the weather conditions significantly diminished wood. Now (and we are a little more than a year) away from the event, we have collected more than 50% of the felled plants, but the work will still be long and demanding. In recent months, there have also been numerous activities in solidarity with the Forest and for the safeguarding of its wood from violin making. To remember the twinning with the prestigious school of violin making in Cremona. Many were also the musicians who came to Paneveggio to play, driven almost by the desire to “console” the trees that remained alone after the fall of their “brothers” shot down by the wind. I am sure, however, that Nature has been “slapped” with the “Vaia” hurricane and, in the coming years, it will “caress” us, making a wood grow again, strong, luxuriant, and lasting. We just need to have so much patience …

Thank you so much for your availability. But above all, thank you for the passion with which you watch over the rebirth of our favorite forest. For our readers, “the forest of cellos”.

November 11, 2019

Gaetano Braga was born in Giulianova, on 9 June 1829 by Isidoro Braga and Splendora de Angelis. As often happened in Italy in that period, the parents wanted to direct their son to an ecclesiastical career, still at an early age, Gaetano showed a precocious talent for music. Encouraged by the Duchess D’Atri Giulia Colonna, his parents addressed their son to the College of S. Pietro a Maiella. At first, Gaetano was admitted as an external student but then passed admission to the singing course, and got a free seat. It was the year 1841. Here the predisposition for music and ease of learning, especially for the cello, was immediately evident to the director of that time, S. Mercadante. Precisely for this reason, the student was given a cello built specifically for him by the violin maker Nicola Gagliano. His first cello teacher was Gaetano Ciaudelli, who in just two years led him to be a maestrino both in the same institute and in external schools. Braga immediately showed great talent as the first cello in the public academies held in the theater of the College. He also studied singing, with Alessandro Busti, counterpoint, Francesco Ruggi, and Carlo Conti, and composition, with Mercadante himself. Mercadeante asked the young Braga to write a solfeggio course, the Saul cantata, a Mass, and several pieces for the solo cello, or with piano accompaniment. In 1849, Braga called in Naples her brother Giuseppe, destined to become a famous pianist. In 1853 one of his compositions was performed in public for the first time. His semi-serious work Alina, on a libretto by L. E. Bardare, was indeed represented in Naples and judged very promising. After this experience, Braga began his career as a cellist performing in Florence, Bologna, Trieste, and even Vienna. Here he met the pianist Giuseppe Stanzieri, one of his dearest collaborators and friends even during his subsequent stay in Paris. In the French city, he performed particularly compositions of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and had the opportunity to play with the violinist Mayseder quartet. After a brief stay in Florence, he returned to Paris, where he stayed until 1857, quickly becoming the most fashionable cellist and the most sought-after singing teacher by the artists of Theater Italien. He played with the best performers of the time (Liszt, Gounod, Bizet, Saint Saens, Rubinstein, Bottesini), met musicians like Auber, Halévy, Mayerbeer, and men of letters like Dumas and Gautier. He became friends with Rossini, with whom he maintained a close and lively correspondence and to which he dedicated his work The Adventurers. For the theatrical impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, he wrote a serious opera in two acts, the Estella di San Germano, represented in the presence of emperor Franz Joseph I, on May 29, 1857, at the Karntnerthortheater in Vienna. The Prince Leopold of Bourbon, count of Syracuse, after attending a performance of the opera Estella, commissioned him a semi-serious work in two acts to inaugurate the theater of his palace in Naples. Thus was born the opera Il Ritratto, staged on 6 March 1858, with great success. After the Italian success, he returned to Paris, where he resumed teaching singing. Among her students, was the contralto Adelaide Borghi Mamo who, thanks to her splendid voice, brought the opera Margherita la Mendicante to success at the Theater Italien in Paris on December 20, 1859. Then Braga came to Milan, where he composed an opera in three deeds, Il Mormile, but his performance at La Scala in 1862 was a flop. Even the later theatrical work, the Ruy Blas, was the cause of bitterness for the author: it was never represented. The last theatrical works, Gli Avventurieri, in four acts, Reginella, in three acts, the only work performed in several theaters (Lecco, Milan, Modena, Parma, Cagliari, Venice) had alternate fortune; Caligula, presented with enormous support at the Teatro San Carlo in Lisbon, was then revived in Milan, at the Teatro alla Scala, where it was a genuine failure. Following this disappointment, Braga definitively gave up composing for the theater. If, as a theatrical composer, Braga had not always found the admiration he desired, considerable approval from the public received his chamber vocal compositions instead. Particularly famous is the Leggenda Valacca, also known as Angel’s Serenade, for singing with piano and cello accompaniment: a simple and catchy melody, adapted to the taste of the time but destined to be transcribed for many different organic and to enter permanently in the repertoire. Success came not only from Europe but also from America. Braga, in his compositions, explored a new cello language, exploring all the expressive possibilities of his musical instrument. He was famous for his cellist pupils, who recommended playing the cello only after studying the “bel canto” in such a way as to be able to “sing well” on the instrument. He was a friend of Servais, but he considered the style of the illustrious Belgian colleague too violinistic. In his opinion, the cello had to enhance the “human” notes that can move and are impossible for any instrument other than the cello. “Human” notes abound in the numerous cello patterns that Braga composed and performed frequently in concert, skillfully selecting and elaborating the best themes of the works of Mercadante, Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. Cantabilità and expressiveness made possible by a solid technical foundation attested without a doubt by the presence, among its many compositions, of technically very demanding pieces such as the Corricolo Napolitano, a joke for cello and piano. The technique was also at the center of his didactic practice, so much so that the Italian musical publisher Ricordi chose to entrust to him the task of treating the reworking of the Dotzauer Cello Method, published in 1873 and soon become a text used in all the Conservatories of Italy. Braga, as a cellist, showed great personality. In Milan, in 1870, he achieved great success in a concert repeated in Bologna, Florence, and Naples. In the following years, he gave concerts in Spain and Portugal. In 1874 went on tour in America. On his return to Europe, he gave concerts in London and Paris, where he remained until 1894 when he settled permanently in Milan. He spent the last few years with his friends. Braga wrote the musical version of La Ricamatrice by Antonio Fogazzaro and the writer, in the novel Il Maestro Chieco, outlined a literary portrait of Batta in the figure of Lazarus. He continued his activity as a cellist until 1903, when he was struck by a hemiparesis which prevented him from continuing to play the wonderful Stradivari cello of 1731 which he had bought in London in 1856 and which still bears his name. Braga died in Milan on September 20, 1907. Her cello continues to live under the nimble fingers of the Korean cellist Myung-wha Chung. TO KNOW MORE Casa Museo Gaetano Braga Braga Gaetano, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Gaetano Braga e il giallo del “Ruy Blas” rifiutato Giuliano Braga, Io Braga e il Violoncello

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