Inspired by an artistic idea put forward by Maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli, the International Sacred Music Festival "Anima Mundi", which began in 2001, is one of the most important and prestigious events of its kind both in Italy and abroad.
Its success, based on continuity and stability, is due to the Opera Primaziale Pisana, which has been immediately joined, with an essential financial and operational contribution, by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pisa, which made it possible to support and guide such an awesome feat towards utmost excellence.
The idea of organising a Sacred Music Festival just in Pisa was based on the grounds, which then proved to be right, developed by artistic director Sergio Sablich, a world-known musicologist and music, musical consultant to Milan's Teatro alla Scala and artistic director of the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, pointed out by Giuseppe Sinopoli.
First and foremost, the fact there was no such festival in Italy to showcase the musical masterpieces of all times associated with the concept of the "sacred" in its widest sense (not only in terms of mass and the church, but also in its widest sense, in religious, spiritual, meditative terms) through performances that could set interpretative, philological and critical standards.
Secondly, the unique beauty, solemnity and harmony of the Cathedral of Pisa, which since its beginning had been chosen for concerts, and which also proved perfectly fit, for its acoustic and ambient features, for music, and for sacred music in particular.
But all this was boosted by the intention, a brave one as it was clearly in opposition with the present times, to give voice and space to a high-profile artistic event, which was demanding from every point of view and which attested to an idea of culture. This idea of culture not being ephemeral but at the same time serious and not boring, humanely and ethically expressing a spiritual need, but which is also able to offer emotions and reflections by virtue of the riveting strength of the music language, which is the most universal and straightforward of them all.
This journey of feelings and knowledge is vouched for by the great composers that devoted themselves to sacred music, from Palestrina to Monteverdi, from Bach to Mozart, from Schubert to Brahms and Mahler, through to the works of contemporary artists, who kept bearing witness to the hard quest and relation with the sacred in our age: of these and many equally important authors, "Anima Mundi" has offered a wide, exhaustive picture, ranging across every aspect of the ancient and modern repertoire.
So, people in Pisa could listen to voices, choirs and orchestras from all over the world, specialising in this repertoire, as well as such artists of worldwide renown as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Yuri Temirkanov, Daniele Gatti, Gustav Kuhn and Leopold Hager, to mention but a few: all involved in events that have also been opportunities for an insight into interpretative issues and a joy to listen.
The purposes that the Festival had set out for itself, to bear witness to the wealth and versatility of music production associated with the "sacred", a sacredness which is, in its own right, a constituent of music as such, and to reassert the importance of the values of spirituality for human and social experience, have been achieved through the variety of music on offer and the excellent standard of the performances, which received great coverage by both general and specialist mass media, which all agreed on awarding the International Sacred Music Festival "Anima Mundi" of Pisa, and consequently its promoters, the significant, unanimous recognition of a "flagship festival".
The Festival, consisting of eight-nine concerts, mostly held in the incomparable setting of the Cathedral (it can seat over 1,100 people), is generally scheduled between September 20th and October 20th, concentrating the best events in the weekends so that more people can attend the concerts.
The success of the event, as proved by the huge number of people (on average over 5,000 people per season, with the best concerts "sold out"), despite a low-profile promotional campaign, and by the national and local, general and specialist media coverage, suggests that the "product" quality is by now a matter of course and that the organisational machine is by now well-oiled.
© 2004-2007 Opera della Primaziale Pisana - credits & copyright
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