The concert by Roberto Cacciapaglia at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome
Rome, 26 April 2025
By Marialuisa Veneziano
Roberto Cacciapaglia
In a time that runs fast, where everything seems to be consuming at an instant, stopping to listen can be a revolutionary act. It is what happened on 24 April 2025, at the Petrassi Hall of the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, during the concert Roberto Cacciapaglia, one of the most visionary and deepest musicians of our time.
With his tour "Time to Be"Cacciapaglia gave us a musical experience that went far beyond listening: it was a real immersion, an inner journey suspended between sound and silence. Pianos, arches, minimal electronics: everything has competition to create a sound landscape capable of touching deep strings, awakening soft emotions and ancient nostalgies.
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In that room, every note seemed to breathe, every pause weighed like a beat of wings in the void. The music of Cacciapaglia does not claim to explain or entertain: invites. Invite to stop, to listen, to find within us a space of silence and wonder.
Listening authentically today is a necessary act. We live in a saturated world of sounds, words, images, often devoid of weight. To rediscover the essence of sound, its evocative and transformative power, is a rare gift. And that's what Armonies of the Apeiron desires to promote: a space where music, art and thought can become instruments of awakening, care and possibilities.
Roberto Cacciapaglia's music teaches us that it is not necessary to scream to be heard. Sometimes a note is enough, lit in the infinite, to reconnect to our most authentic being.
With the disappearance of Pope Francis closes an intense and luminous page of the history of the Church. A pontificate marked by simple and powerful words, deep gestures and a concrete spirituality, close to the last, able to embrace even those who felt far away.
His voice is strongly resounded in a world often deafened by noise: a voice that spoke of peace, forgiveness, human dignity, which called for a poor Church for the poor and gave birth to the existential suburbs. Pope Francis has courageously collected the legacy of a giant of thought and faith as Benedict XVI. If Ratzinger was able to illuminate the Church with the theological intelligence, the spiritual depth and humility of a Pope who had the strength to step aside, Francis continued that path making the Gospel even closer, daily and lived. Different in ways, both united by an authentic faith and a radical love for truth. Music has accompanied many significant moments of the pontificate of Francis, since the day of enthronment. On that occasion, even those who write had the honour to offer a small, humble contribution as an organist during the celebration. An experience lived with deep emotion and gratitude, which remains among the most intense memories: the notes intertwined with the silence of the square, the looks collected, a strong and clear perception of change. Pope Francis was able to listen, but above all he was able to listen. His legacy is not only made of words, but of silences loaded with sense, looks, slow but decisive steps. His pastoral style has left an indelible mark, which will continue to inspire believers and non-believers.
It remains the memory of a man who has been able to transform the Church's guide into a shared, human and profound journey. And on this journey, every note, every gesture, every word, has helped to build a harmony that will remain alive in time.
Not a cathedral, but a theatre. Not stone and silence, but velvet, wood and breath. Yet, in the heart of the Pergolesi Theatre of Jesi, this evening, the Requiem Mozart resounded as an intimate lay mass, able to suspend time and breath. If in a large basilica sacred music is echoed and sky, here it is made flesh, look, tremble. Because death, at the bottom, does not live only in the temples: it sits next to us also in the audience, while listening to the beauty that overcomes us.
Luigi Piovano, in the direction, did something beautiful: he led the orchestra as a soul accompanies in the crossing of an invisible border. With measured gesture, almost liturgical, he carved an intense and collected reading, in which each movement seemed to be born from the collective breath between podium and public. The Marchigiana Philharmonic Orchestra responded with depth and sobriety, avoiding any temptation of theatricality: pain does not need ornaments. The Confutatis maledictis has marked a point of vertigo: the contrast between the invocation of the damned and the cry voca me cum benedictis created a moment when music no longer asked for listening, but participation. There, between fire and supplication, we heard the voice of man before the unknown. As Seneca wrote, "no wind is favorable for the sailor who does not know where to go" – but in that passage, it was clear that Mozart knew very well where to lead us: in the heart of doubt.
The Lacrimo it was perhaps the most intimate and moving moment. Fragile, iridescent, as if the whole world holds its breath. "We die every day," Montaigne said, but there are music that make us die better. In that unstoppable trend, which turns out shortly after the beginning, there is all the awareness of the end, and the poignant tenderness of those who still hope, even knowing.
Luigi Piovano, the Form and the Youth Choir of the Marches and the Soloists of the Accademia Lirica by Osimo (AN)
In "Quam olim Abrahae promisisti", often considered only an escaped passage, Piovano was able to find an authentic tension. The promise to Abraham, that echo of eternity, has become an almost stoic cry: an invitation to trust, to remember that man is a bridge between the flesh and the invisible. Nietzsche wrote that "man is something that must be overcome": in this escape, humanity seemed already beyond itself, launched towards a bright elsewhere. And then the Dies, which shocked the theater as a controlled earthquake. "Day of anger, that day" – and music has become judgment, but also beat. There was no terror here, but awareness. Not the cry of condemnation, but the dignity of those who look in the face of destiny. Kierkegaard reminds us that "life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward": in that straw, the sense of time has turned over.
Also the soloists and the choir, capable of a clear and spiritual surrender, never emphatic. But it is on the orchestra and the conductor who weighed the greatest task: to return the mystery without unveiling it, to guard it without damaging it. Mission accomplished.
And when it seemed that nothing could be added to such fullness, the Ave verum corpus arrived. Not foreseen by Requiem, but bound to it as a secret echo, a fragment of heaven that opens in the clouds. At that time the theater was cradled, breath, sweet vertigo. The voices and arches merged into a suspended prayer, which seemed not to ask for anything, but only to caresss the soul. It was the tenderness of the divine that is lowered, that becomes body – as the text says – "born by the Virgin Mary, really suffered and uncleaned on the cross for man". And in that sound so pure, so unarmed, everyone could feel something that has no name: a presence, a forgiveness, a caress for what within us remains inconsolable. A heavenly moment, which made the eyes shine even to the quietest. As if for a moment, really, we were all embraced by something bigger, and infinitely good.
In the end, more than applause, there was a dense silence, suspended, almost grateful. Like after a confession or a dream. As after having touched, even for an hour, the eternity that dwells within each of us.
Beethoven and the Unstoppable Dance of Destiny: A Journey with the Seventh Symphony
by Marialuisa Veneziano
Ancona, Experimental Theatre
29 March 2025, at 20:30
FORM, Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana
Director, Luigi Piovano
Director Luigi Piovano with the FORM, FIlarmonica Marchigiana Orchestra
Teatro gremito. The buzz before magic. Then silence.
Luigi Piovano raises his arms with a solemnity that seems already music. In front of him, the Marchigian Philharmonic is ready to unleash that sound turbine which is Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, defined by Wagner "the apotheosis of dance". The mental curtain opens, and here we are in the heart of an experience that is not only auditory, but existential.
First movement: The Announcement of the inevitable
The introduction begins with an almost ritual solemnity, a slow inceding that seems to reveal something sacred. It's like Beethoven was preparing us for an ineluctable event, something we can't avoid, like time or destiny. And then... the rhythm explodes. An unstoppable exaltation, as if the whole universe danced on a vital, primordial pulsation. The wand of Piovano becomes a catalyst of energy: every gesture a command, every look an inspiration.
Second movement: The March of Pain and Beauty
A moment of harvest. The second movement, that Allegretto, who shed tears to generations of listeners, creeps into the folds of the soul. Beethoven stops dancing and makes us walk. One step later, we are immersed in a sound procession that speaks of loss, melancholy, but also of hope. The orchestra shapes the phrases with a delicacy that seems to touch the fabric itself of existence. It is not a lament, it is a solemn engraving towards an unknown horizon.
Luigi Piovano
Third movement: Irrefrenable Impulse
Like a heart that resumes to beat after a moment of suspension, the third movement explodes in a triumph of vitality. Here Beethoven seems to remind us that life is a flow, a laughter, an unstoppable vortex. Piovano and Filarmonica Marchigiana play with this energy, giving body and light to a dance that is almost animal in its power. Each instrument dialogues with each other in a conversation that knows of primitive joy.
Fourth movement: The Ecstasy of the Movement
And then the final comes. The curtain does not fall, it rises. Here Beethoven is demiurgo of a perpetual motion, a ride without brakes towards sound lighting. The theatre vibrates under the unstoppable rhythmic push, and the orchestra of Piovano becomes a single, button entity. The public is transported, there are no more seats or posts, only a total abandonment to the joyful fury of music. And then... the stroke of grace. The last chord falls into the theatre and chest. Quiet. A silence full of everything that has just happened. And finally, the applause, that human sound that tries to respond to the infinite. Beethoven took us by hand and forced us to dance with him. But it wasn't just a dance: it was life itself. And tonight, thanks to Luigi Piovano and the Filarmonica Marchigiana, we danced like there was no tomorrow. A masterful, intense and vibrant performance, which honored this monumental symphony. The orchestra has been able to convey every emotional nuance with precision and passion, reminding us that the great music lives and breathes through those who play it. An absolute triumph.
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