A little more music in Florence

It’s surprising that the music establishment in Florence is performing so little this year and that so many other excellent performers are. Yesterday we took in a standard classical musical program in a stunning musical space. We heard the the premier of a commissioned piece by a composer who was present in the audience, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, and the Beethoven 7th Symphony. The performance took place in the second story of a church.

The “second floor of a church”? The musical space doesn’t sound impressive, does it?

The church is in the center of medieval Florence where the buildings are crowded and almost all the traffic is on foot and on bikes. Because the area is so crowded, there is no space to step back to view the church building from the ground. Here is a photo of Orsanmichele from the top of the town’s main bell tower:  Orsanmichele,_view.JPG.

Vaulted brick ceiling

The ground floor of the building is a 700 year old church built on a site where miracles were said to have occurred in the 1300s. The second and third floors served to store grain against a time of troubles such as a famine or a siege of the city. The Florentines are very practical people.

As you can see the ceilings must be very high. Once you are inside you see that the ceilings are vaulted and are a warm color of bare brick.

In the 1400s the guilds of the city employed sculptors to create likenesses of their patron saints. The sculptures they produced were placed in niches around the four exterior sides of Orsanmichele about 15 feet above street level. The sculptures projected the wealth and the piety of the guilds.

Soloist takes a bow

In more recent years the 14 statues have been moved indoors and have been replaced with copies. Most of the originals are now on display on the second floor of Orsanmichele. The statues are on platforms that form a square about 60 feet on a side. The placement of the statues reflect their original placement on the outside of the building.

Last night the orchestra performed on an inner platform that was surrounded by the original 14th,  15th, and 16th century sculptures. Here in our photo, the violinist is taking a bow after his performance of the Mendelssohn. He is bowing while he stands between Saint James, put in place by the furriers guild in 1415, and the Madonna of the Rose, put in place by the doctors and apothecaries guild in 1399.

The room acoustic was good, the setting was intimate, and the live orchestra playing among the ancient statues was a memorable experience.