Il Paese senza punta

(THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN ITALIAN FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MAGAZINE AMADEUS, N° 268, MARCH 2012).

 

The story we are going to tell comes from a long way off, geographically and historically speaking, and at the same time has deep roots in the land of Emilia. Now, in 1853 a young musician and craftsman from Budrio, a small place near Bologna, named Giuseppe Donati had the happy thought of manufacturing a clay whistle shaped like a little goose such as certain items that are still sold today in fairs. A "first hand" story comes from a contemporary journalist of the craftsman, Otello Cavara, who in 1909 interviewed Donati: "[He] ... had learned music theory and piano; he played the clarinet in the Budrio wind orchestra - his native place - and the organ in churches; then it occurred to him to make a joke. So Donati imagined a musical instrument with beak, tail and bulging, hollow inside and with four holes on the sides; Cavara continued: “ You could play some easy melody with it, but only in the extension of an octave.

The joke pleased Budrio’s musicians and Donati conceived another one item, but this time without sound. He created with clay an object similar to a cornet. But continuing to handle it, the object was broken: the mouthpiece and the windway fell down. The surviving part maintained a shape that revealed to Donati the definitive ocarina, the one destined to popularity. He began to fabricate others drilling holes for all ten fingers in handy locations." After a feverish work, Donati realizes a family of five ocarinas, of different sizes, which later will be expanded to seven. Already at the origin, ocarina has ipso facto the peculiarity of being a group instrument. "The five instruments passed to as many players selected among the most passionate Budrio’s musicians, including Donati. They formed the "Concert of ocarinas" and created happiness of the place for a few weeks, they went around, every night, playing in taverns and private houses. "

Music archaeology doesn’t forbid the hypothesis that from the very beginning man had build whistles or globular clay flutes, and even that clay is a new element in organology.

Curt Sachs, in his History of Musical Instruments tells that excavations in eastern China have revealed a globular limestone flute (shiun) shaped like a barrel with an opening at the top and five finger holes, presumably to play a scale, according to some a C-G or a pentatonic. In fact in ancient China were produced clay whistles, with or without finger holes, similar to most games for kids to real instruments, especially the version without finger holes. Zoomorphic instruments representing birds, many with sexual allusions or related to the fertility of the earth, were also found in Central America and may represent the remains of the Neolithic. But the randomness of the invention of the ucarina or ucareina in bolognese dialect, doesn’t forget the novelty of having joined in one object whistle and globular shape, as the same Sachs certify, also if with reservations, mentioning the author and the place of origin: "It was one of the curiosities of history, "the invention" by a certain Donati from Budrio, in Italy, of a clay or porcelain globular beak flute, shaped like a turnip (sic!) with the mouthpiece of a whistle and eight finger holes... this unassuming instrument  called ocarina (from goose) became very popular with lovers of modest needs." Now Ocarina and Budrio are synonyms all over the world, and never mind if Sachs’ heavily anthropological perspective forcing the ocarina to be little more than a toy.

 

It's a story, we said, that has deep roots in popular culture; the Anglo-Saxons don’t distinguish between high and popular culture, but they use the term folk to talk about music that has deep implications with the land and the culture of a people or a group. In fact, together with the birth of the ocarina, borned a specific literature, with arrangements from folk songs of the great tradition of Italian opera, or even composed first for quintet and then for septet, that will become the typical workforce.

But our journey into the world of ocarina is full of surprises: Fabio Galliani, who is the curator of the Budrio Ocarina Museum, proves an extreme knowledge of historical events and an inexhaustible source of information; going through together the various areas of the museum we find that our story takes unexpected drifts toward different places from the origin. In fact after performances with imaginative names around Italy, the first septet took a tour in Europe; Mezzetti brothers, Alberto and Ercole, a little younger than Donati, participated at the first release of the instrument outside not only from the narrow local boundaries, but even beyond the Alps. Alberto moved to Paris to make ocarinas, Ercole instead went to London as musician, composer and teacher. Of those beginnings remain us the heirs’ legacies of those "pioneers", like some ocarinas with the molds and collections of about seventy articles ranging from 1869 to 1877 plus an appendix from 1911, especially important to know the repertoires.

After Paris and London, also Vienna was fascinated by ocarina. The Viennese Heinrich Fiehn, sculptor and ceramist, listening to the Italian musicians in 1873, was dazzled and immediately began to fabricate ocarinas, becoming quickly  the great "rival" of Mezzetti; in fact since 1875 we had the first production of ocarinas out of Budrio, of which three copies are now in the Museum. He launched the black ocarina trimmed in gold and he had a great success due to the fact that he sold good and cheap instrument, and with a peculiarity: his production was not in settimini, then in ocarinas of different sizes but instruments tuned in various tonalities such as harmonicas, in D, in E, etc.

 

Galliani is also and above all a musician: besides being part of the Gruppo Ocarinistico Budriese, the oldest group heir to the tradition from Donati on, known in the world as GOB, and part of the Ocarina Ensemble, more recently, which also includes different instruments as guitars and that was founded in 2004 by will of few young musicians trained at the school of music, he is also the creator of the Ocarina Festival. The two groups have different tasks: the GOB has recently attended the AngelicA Festival, a view of contemporary music desired by Fondazione Angelica, and the traditional concert of the 2nd August (in which there is also an international composition contest) in memory of the attack at the Bologna station (2nd August 1980). Some important Italian and foreign composers have written for them witnessing a growing interest for the sound of the instrument. The Ocarina Ensemble, for its part, has a “fresher” approach, not necessarily linked to tradition, whose repertoire includes also songs from musicals or even traditional South American pieces. Born within the Associazione Diapason of Budrio with his concerts supports the school of ocarina (which closes a circle) allowing the best to be part of it.

After a period of mixed fortunes, also due to the poor repertoires chosen in order to satisfy the rough public of fairs and markets, today the success of the GOB goes through the commitment of experienced musicians; the great and unexpected spread to the East, Korea in the lead, has contributed to a international visibility of the trademark "Ocarina of Budrio". Someone might even think of a return to origins of this instrument, but the truth is that the particular sound is perfectly in keeping with the music culture of the Orientals who, after an initial period in which prevailed a holistic and virtuosic approach that also crossed the border in jazz or in a certain new-age trend, now adheres more to the model of "collective instrument" as at origin, and this was made possible thanks to the valuable contribution of the GOB which, through trips and master-classes attended by thousands between teachers and students, has allowed a more widespread diffusion and with precise methods of work. It isn’t a coincidence that with this boom of new recruits there is also an increase of strength of the Noble Ocarina, a Korean industry that holds the entire Asian market and stands out as the most important production sector of instrument outside of Italy, and at the same time proposed itself as the most important sponsor at the Festival budriese. The tradition, carried on today with passion by Fabio Menaglio and his wife is any case safe; in fact in their laboratory in Budrio they continue to make excellent instruments, also thanks to a more scientific approach based on the physical model of sound produced by Menaglio himself, that obtains instruments perfectly in tune without mistakes. Obviously also out of Budrio ocarinas are built, and the Museum (that is situated in the centre of Budrio) contains a lot of them coming from various parts of Italy and of the world, a sign that this little instrument is worthy of having a great future.

 

 

March 2012