While a new, lacerating conflict flares up, imusic becomes the ambassador for our message of peace and solidarity, thanks to its ability to overcome all differences in culture, language and religion. To solemnise the concerts within the very sanctuaries where a wounded humanity has flocked for centuries in search of solace, I chose Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, in which both the pain of the world and all the hope of which Man is capable resound,
stated Maestro Riccardo Muti on the occasion of ‘The Roads of Friendship’ concert in Lourdes.
On 11 July, for the first of the traditional concerts taking place as part of the Ravenna Festival, in the square in front of the Marian basilica, the Maestro conducted the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and the Choir combining Italian and Ukrainian artists.
After opening with Vivaldi’s Magnificat and the voices of a hundred children singing Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, the programme continued with Mozart’s Concerto No. 1 K 412, Verdi’s Stabat Mater and Te Deum and other performances including the singing of a woman and a child, a psalm from the Orthodox liturgy and songs in Basque and Occitan.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes welcomed the first of the traditional concerts “The Roads of Friendship”, a project within the Ravenna Festival that has been held in symbolic places of ancient and contemporary history since 1997 to build “bridges of brotherhood through art and culture” and that, through the “spark” of music, rekindles conversations and calls for hope.
Organised as part of the L’Offrande Musicale festival, the event gained the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Italian Cultural Institute of Marseilleand the Emilia-Romagna Region.
As well as celebrating the natural beauty and cultural richness of the Hautes Pyrénées region in which it takes place, the festival is committed to encouraging the participation of disabled audiences. This collaboration led to the involvement of Felix Klieser and Beñat Achiary: Klieser is a German artist whose disability has not prevented him from becoming an exceptional cornet player, whereas Achiary is a Basque singer who has performed Marian hymns in his own language and in Occitan, ideally uniting the two sides of the Pyrenees. Les Chanteurs Pyrénéens de Tarbes and Les Chanteurs Montagnards de Lourdes also performed in Lourdes.
On 14 July, “The Roads of Friendship” will reach the Pontifical Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, the other apex of this journey, always in the worship of the Virgin Mary and with a special dedication to Mariupol – the city of Mary – in which prayers are ideally extended to the victims of all wars. In fact, as Pier Paolo Pasolini, to whom the XXXIII edition of the Ravenna Festival is dedicated, wrote in “Supplica a mia madre” (Prayer to my mother):
You’re the only one in the world who knows what my heart always held, before all other love.
