narrator and pianist Stefano Ragni (Conservatory and University for Foreign students in Perugia)
music by Auber, Verdi, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Wagner
Author of Filosofia della musica (Paris, 1836) Giuseppe Mazzini is the only philosopher and Italian politician who has dedicated specific attention to a text explicitly dedicated to relations between music and society.
In 1834 Mazzini fonde the association Giovine Europa in Bern; gathering projects of democracy and independence expressed by Italian, Polish and German exiles.
Music to Mazzini, particularly the melodrama, is closely linked with the dream of a united free Europe, partaker of the same ideals of progress and emancipation.
Guitarist of a certain level, great expert on opera; in his London exile Mazzini matured a reflection on Meyerbeer’s production of music - the ability to provide his political thought a synthesis of ideas, motifs and reflections that could convince the Europeans to join in a great, shared, concious harmony. A project that in 1862 will find its full realization in the Inno delle Nazioni that Giuseppe Verdi presented at the international expo in London.
STEFANO RAGNIStefano Ragni - graduated in philosophy, in composition, direction of choir and piano.
Author of twenty music monographs – furthermore of Storia della musica italiana per studenti stranieri, known by students all over the world.
Lecturer at the Conservatory and at the University for Foreign students in Perugia, he is also considered one of the leading experts on music of the Risorgimento and in particular on the connection between Mazzini and the music.
He has edited a critical edition of the Filosofia della Musica for the Domus Mazziniana in Pisa (1996).
In 2005 Stefano Ragni was a member of the National Committee of the Mazzini celebrations.
In 2011 The Italian Mazzini Association awarded him the medal "Goffredo Mameli".
In 2013 - member of the Scientific Committee of the Verdi celebrations.
Recently Stefano Ragni has published an essay on Verdi for the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia (Treccani).
In May, he participated in the project "Music and the birth of Modern Europe" (Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford) with a contribution of Mazzini and the music.
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