Britten 50
Gnocchi, Stella

Giovanni Gnocchi, cello

Alessandro Stella, piano

On the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death

Frank Bridge (1879–1941)

Four Pieces for Cello and Piano

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)

Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, Op. 65

35’ | Ticket €10

On the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Benjamin Britten, the Salone degli Arazzi hosts a concert that intertwines the stories of masters and pupils, of gratitude and artistic legacy. This remarkable narrative is shaped by two leading figures of the national and international music scene—both regular guests of Trame Sonore.

Frank Bridge was the principal composition teacher of the young Britten and the figure who most profoundly shaped his musical formation. The Four Pieces bear witness to the refinement of his chamber writing and to the deep bond that continued to unite teacher and pupil well beyond the years of apprenticeship.

Britten’s Op. 65 Sonata was born from an encounter that would become a lasting friendship: his meeting with the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten met him in London in 1960 during the British premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto, and from that evening something profoundly changed in his creative life. Conceived during a stay in Greece in the autumn of the same year, the Sonata interrupted a long period of silence in the composer’s chamber output.

Its five movements—Dialogo, Scherzo-pizzicato, Elegia, Marcia, and Moto perpetuo—reveal a Britten capable of renewing his language with striking inventive freedom, once again transforming human encounters into musical substance.

Text by Giada De Sio