Albumleaf 178: January 16, 2021 (Bologna)
The coronavirus situation has confined us to Bologna for months now, and with each passing day I yearn more and more to travel–especially to non-urban areas like the mountains.
I have never been to the Latemar range in the Dolomites. But someone posted about them the other day on one of the “beautiful Italy” Facebook pages I follow, and the urge to be up high in some remote rifugio–to breath in the pure air and see for miles and miles–hit me hard.
Albumleaf 177: January 13, 2021 (Bologna)
“The Ringing of the Dead-Gatherers”
During the plague of 1630, the groups of men who went around collecting the sick and dead in Milan were called “monatti,” and they wore little bells on their ankles to signal their approach. In Manzoni’s The Betrothed, the monatti are often inebriated and pass flasks of wine among themselves. At one point, they encounter a young mother who entreats them to take her dying baby and to return later that day to collect her.
Albumleaf 170: October 15, 2020 (Bologna)
Albumleaf 169: July 6, 2020 (Bologna)
So, below is a rough recording of this Albumleaf that I wrote over the summer. Since then, I’ve revised and rerecorded it for a very exciting project that I expect to be announcing in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the recording below does give a sense of the final version. The picture shows “Pilate’s Basin” in a courtyard of the Basilica of Santo Stefano in Bologna.
David Salvage composes and performs all the music on this blog, unless otherwise indicated.
SCORES to some of the music on this website are posted here.
Albumleaves is also featured on the album Lock and Key (Navona 5881).
Some of Salvage’s larger compositions can be found on SoundCloud. He is also the author of Getting Back to Music: A Dialogue About Music Appreciation.