Photographing Music. “Una Rete in Viaggio” at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin
On 7 May we will be at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin to talk about “Photography and Music” together with the Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive, Lelli & Masotti and the Archivio di Etnografia e Storia Sociale (AESS) – Lombardy Region. This will be the third and final event in the 2024 edition of “Una Rete in Viaggio. Storie, idee, progetti”, a programme of meetings curated by Rete Fotografia, which brings together members and institutions to explore common areas of interest.
The exhibition entitled Non ha l’età. Il Festival di Sanremo in bianco e nero 1951-1976 will run until 12 May at the Gallerie d’Italia. The Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive will use it to reconstruct the relationship between photography and music in the archive of the Publifoto photojournalism agency. The Lelli & Masotti photographic archive will examine the question of “what it means to photograph music” by explaining what it means to capture live musical events, from rock to jazz, through to the concerts at the La Scala opera house in Milan, where Silvia Lelli and Roberto Masotti were official photographers for a long time. The contribution of the Archivio di Etnografia e Storia Sociale (AESS) – Lombardy Region will focus on the anthropological aspect in reportages documenting the use of songs and instrumental music during weddings, carnivals, and street performances, capturing their ritual aspects.
Lastly, we ourselves will look at the close bond between business and music, which can be retraced through the photographs published over the years in Pirelli house organs. From the 1940s to the 1970s, many articles on the world of music were published in Pirelli magazine and in Fatti e Notizie. These focused in particular on the big names in music and on the latest chart toppers, with reports and analyses from a socio-anthropological angle, exploring the role of music in well-being and corporate culture.
“Musica per chi lavora” (“Music for those who work”) was the title of an article that appeared in Pirelli magazine in 1952. It examined the influence of music on workers’ productivity, a subject often inspired by 1950s psychology experiments in America. In 1961 Aldo Visalberghi wrote about his investigation into the “Responsibilities of television”, which discussed the potential of television as a means for educating spectators, and thus also the key role of music on the small screen. Many photographs in our archive were never published in the magazine, and these include numerous portraits of Leonard Bernstein, with one that shows him with Igor Stravinsky when the Russian composer made his debut on CBS with the New York Philharmonic. “Gli archeologi del blues” (“The archaeologists of the blues”), published in 1965 by the music critic Arrigo Polillo, examined the transition from black music to Louis Armstrong – as illustrated for Pirelli magazine by Studio Farabola together with Mario Riva – through to John Coltrane’s protest jazz. And there is a contribution on musical education in Italy by Corrado Augias (1971) accompanied by a reportage by Mimmo Frassineti at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music in Rome.
Fatti e Notizie, a house organ that first came out in 1950, became a modern glossy magazine in the late 1960s, both in its graphics, with numerous illustrations, and in its content: in addition to news about the company, it published many articles on ecology, sport and culture, as well as columns devoted to music, cinema, and books. In May 1971 the house organ came out in the large format typical of periodicals at the time and in July a column called Variety made its debut, with songs, television, the star system of singing, the Sanremo Festival and Canzonissima. Variety was immediately flanked by other columns under the titles Dischi, Canzoni and Spettacoli. Canzoni offers a comprehensive overview of Italy’s music scene, with its songs and 45 rpm records, and its Cantagiro and Festivalbar programmes on television. Big names included Domenico Modugno, who called for a return to traditional songs and Lucio Dalla who “wants to rediscover Emilian folk songs”. The Spettacoli column reported on the performance by the thirty-five-year-old Enzo Jannacci on 16 June 1971 at the Bicocca: an event organised by Pirelli not just for its employees, but for everyone. Jannacci commented on it in the pages of the periodical, saying: “Here the applause and praise is always genuine, never prompted or merely courteous. And I appreciate authenticity.”
Among the events promoted by the company, Fatti & Notizie primarily focused on the activities of the Pirelli Cultural Centre, such as the famous Concert for Prepared Pianos by John Cage and David Tudor in 1954. A composer and music theorist from Los Angeles, Cage was one of the top names in the avant-garde music scene, but in 1954 he was still virtually unknown in Italy. The event at the Cultural Centre was actually his first public appearance in Italy. In the words of Fatti e Notizie, this was a “courageous” decision by Pirelli and Gino Negri, then curator of the music programme of the Cultural Centre, encouraged by the composer Luciano Berio. It was 5 November and the performance, presented by the composer and musicologist Riccardo Malipiero, was destined to enter the history of modern corporate culture.
Recently, music has emerged as an integral part of corporate culture, finding representation in events such as the MITO SettembreMusica Festival. This partnership began in 2007, and since 2010 Pirelli has also promoted the Festival’s events in its own industrial spaces. In the 2010 edition, the former Settimo Torinese factory became the venue for “I Fiati di Torino” in front of an audience of over four hundred people. After the success of the 2010 edition, the musicians returned to the factory for MITO 2011: this time the I Pomeriggi Musicali Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Luca Pfaff, performed in the renovated spaces of the Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese. In 2014 the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Micha Hamel performed in the premises of the Centre, and in 2016 it was the turn of the musicians of the Altus Trio.
In 2017 Maestro Salvatore Accardo conducted the Orchestra da Camera Italiana in a performance entitled “Il canto della fabbrica” at the Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese. This piece, commissioned by the Pirelli Foundation, was created by the composer and violist Francesco Fiore to illustrate in music the sounds of the Factory 4.0. The concert, which was extensively documented in photographic shoots, inspired the editorial project of the same name published by Mondadori in 2018. This project explores the intersection of industry and music in over 120 images. And the relationship between Accardo and Pirelli goes back even further. In 1971 the Maestro, just thirty years old and already considered to be one of the world’s greatest violinists, was invited by the company to take part in the 6th Music Festival at the Pirelli Cultural Centre.
Photography has the remarkable ability to evoke a circular journey through past and present. So that music, through images, can continue to resonate.
On 7 May we will be at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin to talk about “Photography and Music” together with the Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive, Lelli & Masotti and the Archivio di Etnografia e Storia Sociale (AESS) – Lombardy Region. This will be the third and final event in the 2024 edition of “Una Rete in Viaggio. Storie, idee, progetti”, a programme of meetings curated by Rete Fotografia, which brings together members and institutions to explore common areas of interest.
The exhibition entitled Non ha l’età. Il Festival di Sanremo in bianco e nero 1951-1976 will run until 12 May at the Gallerie d’Italia. The Intesa Sanpaolo Historical Archive will use it to reconstruct the relationship between photography and music in the archive of the Publifoto photojournalism agency. The Lelli & Masotti photographic archive will examine the question of “what it means to photograph music” by explaining what it means to capture live musical events, from rock to jazz, through to the concerts at the La Scala opera house in Milan, where Silvia Lelli and Roberto Masotti were official photographers for a long time. The contribution of the Archivio di Etnografia e Storia Sociale (AESS) – Lombardy Region will focus on the anthropological aspect in reportages documenting the use of songs and instrumental music during weddings, carnivals, and street performances, capturing their ritual aspects.
Lastly, we ourselves will look at the close bond between business and music, which can be retraced through the photographs published over the years in Pirelli house organs. From the 1940s to the 1970s, many articles on the world of music were published in Pirelli magazine and in Fatti e Notizie. These focused in particular on the big names in music and on the latest chart toppers, with reports and analyses from a socio-anthropological angle, exploring the role of music in well-being and corporate culture.
“Musica per chi lavora” (“Music for those who work”) was the title of an article that appeared in Pirelli magazine in 1952. It examined the influence of music on workers’ productivity, a subject often inspired by 1950s psychology experiments in America. In 1961 Aldo Visalberghi wrote about his investigation into the “Responsibilities of television”, which discussed the potential of television as a means for educating spectators, and thus also the key role of music on the small screen. Many photographs in our archive were never published in the magazine, and these include numerous portraits of Leonard Bernstein, with one that shows him with Igor Stravinsky when the Russian composer made his debut on CBS with the New York Philharmonic. “Gli archeologi del blues” (“The archaeologists of the blues”), published in 1965 by the music critic Arrigo Polillo, examined the transition from black music to Louis Armstrong – as illustrated for Pirelli magazine by Studio Farabola together with Mario Riva – through to John Coltrane’s protest jazz. And there is a contribution on musical education in Italy by Corrado Augias (1971) accompanied by a reportage by Mimmo Frassineti at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music in Rome.
Fatti e Notizie, a house organ that first came out in 1950, became a modern glossy magazine in the late 1960s, both in its graphics, with numerous illustrations, and in its content: in addition to news about the company, it published many articles on ecology, sport and culture, as well as columns devoted to music, cinema, and books. In May 1971 the house organ came out in the large format typical of periodicals at the time and in July a column called Variety made its debut, with songs, television, the star system of singing, the Sanremo Festival and Canzonissima. Variety was immediately flanked by other columns under the titles Dischi, Canzoni and Spettacoli. Canzoni offers a comprehensive overview of Italy’s music scene, with its songs and 45 rpm records, and its Cantagiro and Festivalbar programmes on television. Big names included Domenico Modugno, who called for a return to traditional songs and Lucio Dalla who “wants to rediscover Emilian folk songs”. The Spettacoli column reported on the performance by the thirty-five-year-old Enzo Jannacci on 16 June 1971 at the Bicocca: an event organised by Pirelli not just for its employees, but for everyone. Jannacci commented on it in the pages of the periodical, saying: “Here the applause and praise is always genuine, never prompted or merely courteous. And I appreciate authenticity.”
Among the events promoted by the company, Fatti & Notizie primarily focused on the activities of the Pirelli Cultural Centre, such as the famous Concert for Prepared Pianos by John Cage and David Tudor in 1954. A composer and music theorist from Los Angeles, Cage was one of the top names in the avant-garde music scene, but in 1954 he was still virtually unknown in Italy. The event at the Cultural Centre was actually his first public appearance in Italy. In the words of Fatti e Notizie, this was a “courageous” decision by Pirelli and Gino Negri, then curator of the music programme of the Cultural Centre, encouraged by the composer Luciano Berio. It was 5 November and the performance, presented by the composer and musicologist Riccardo Malipiero, was destined to enter the history of modern corporate culture.
Recently, music has emerged as an integral part of corporate culture, finding representation in events such as the MITO SettembreMusica Festival. This partnership began in 2007, and since 2010 Pirelli has also promoted the Festival’s events in its own industrial spaces. In the 2010 edition, the former Settimo Torinese factory became the venue for “I Fiati di Torino” in front of an audience of over four hundred people. After the success of the 2010 edition, the musicians returned to the factory for MITO 2011: this time the I Pomeriggi Musicali Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Luca Pfaff, performed in the renovated spaces of the Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese. In 2014 the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Micha Hamel performed in the premises of the Centre, and in 2016 it was the turn of the musicians of the Altus Trio.
In 2017 Maestro Salvatore Accardo conducted the Orchestra da Camera Italiana in a performance entitled “Il canto della fabbrica” at the Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese. This piece, commissioned by the Pirelli Foundation, was created by the composer and violist Francesco Fiore to illustrate in music the sounds of the Factory 4.0. The concert, which was extensively documented in photographic shoots, inspired the editorial project of the same name published by Mondadori in 2018. This project explores the intersection of industry and music in over 120 images. And the relationship between Accardo and Pirelli goes back even further. In 1971 the Maestro, just thirty years old and already considered to be one of the world’s greatest violinists, was invited by the company to take part in the 6th Music Festival at the Pirelli Cultural Centre.
Photography has the remarkable ability to evoke a circular journey through past and present. So that music, through images, can continue to resonate.
