Among the horrors of war, that of the Fosse Ardeatine is certainly one of the most brutal in the history of the twentieth century: in 2019, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the massacre, Riccardo Muti conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (of which he was musical director for over a decade) in Symphony No. 9 by William Schuman; this year, Riccardo Muti, always devoted to the ethical, and not only aesthetic, value of music, brings that Symphony, called "Le Fosse Ardeatine", for the first time in Italy, to the podium of Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra on March 24th at 9pm at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome to commemorate the 80th anniversary of that massacre.
"Whatever future my symphony may have, whenever it is performed, the public will remember": with these words the American composer entrusted his Ninth Symphony to the world.
It was the spring of 1967 when William Schuman (1910-1992), born into a Jewish family in Manhattan and Pulitzer Prize winner for music in '43, visited the Fosse Ardeatine memorial with his wife and a couple of friends living in the eternal city.
"We must come to terms with the past to build the future, but in this work I am the enemy of oblivion", Schuman wrote again.
Promoted by the LuigiCherubini Youth Orchestra Foundation with the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Rome and the Jewish Community of Rome, the event will also involve some instrumentalists of the Carabinieri Band.
The 335 victims of the massacre perpetrated by the Nazis on 24 March 1944 in Rome will be remembered with a program which, alongside the Symphony "Le Fosse Ardeatine", includes the performance of Franz Schubert's Incompiuta.
The concert has free entry with online booking on the orchestracherubini.it website from 10am on Saturday 9 March.
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