Pirelli has been part of the action ever since the dawn of motor racing: after the first great exploits – such as the Peking to Paris motor race, which was won by the Itala on Pirelli tyres in 1907, and the New York to Paris race through Alaska in 1908 – came the 1920s, when the revolutionary cord technology gave the tyre greater durability and road handling, and Pirelli entered the world of racing on the circuits and roads of all Europe.

It may be no coincidence that it was in those very years that a new department devoted to “Propaganda” was set up in the company. The office, which focused on advertising (“pubblicità e reclame”), the drafting of price lists, catalogues and miscellaneous advertising prints, also oversaw participation in motor races, which were viewed right from the beginning as a high-impact means of promotion. The department’s activities included documenting Pirelli’s participation in motor races, which is why the oldest photos in the photographic archive of the Propaganda Pirelli department are those of the first races in the 1920s: the Coppa della Consuma, the Garda circuit, and the Savio circuit in Ravenna. And, of course, Monza, where Pirelli first took part in 1922, the year it was opened. And then, in 1923, on Martin de Alzaga’s Miller, in 1924 on the victorious Antonio Ascari’s Alfa Romeo P2, and again on Alfa Romeo, driven by Gastone Brilli Peri (after the death of Ascari), who became world champion. The 1930s and ’40s brought the triumphs of drivers such as Tazio Nuvolari and Nino Farina, also in Alfa Romeo and Ferrari, at Monza and in the famous Targa Florio and Mille Miglia races. There is also a wealth of documentation on participation in international races in the 1930s: the Tobruk-Tripoli, the Leopolis Grand Prix in Poland, the San Sebastián GP in Spain, the Finnish GP, the Brazilian GP in Sao Paulo, and many others.

With the catalogue of the car-racing series now complete, all the photos of car races commissioned by Propaganda Pirelli from the 1920s to the 1950s are now available online. Visitors can use keywords to filter the images and thus retrace the feats of great drivers, great cars and great circuits, such as the one at Monza: a story that still continues today…

“Uniqueness and excellence, the veneration of sound and the joy of making music, an exciting challenge, with young people and for young people: these are the key features of the Orchestra da Camera Italiana,” says Maestro Salvatore Accardo, talking about the string orchestra founded in 1996 with the best students and alumni of the Accademia W. Stauffer in Cremona. One of its aims is to continue a tradition of musical excellence in Italy and to adopt a different approach the public by modifying the traditional way of having the performers strictly in front of the audience.

Pirelli and Maestro Salvatore Accardo started their relationship in 2012 when the professors of the Orchestra were welcomed to the Pirelli Auditorium in Milano Bicocca to study and work together on a new programme for the concert season that year. The occasion reasserted the link between places of work and those of music as one of the expressions of the industrial humanism that has always been a major feature of Pirelli. Employees also played a lead role by participating with their families in the general rehearsals and, indirectly, in a fascinating reflection on “sounds”, on music and on the effort involved in performing it, in order to listen and gain a personal understanding of what it means to put on a concert, “constructing a performance, in search of the highest quality.

The event was repeated also in the following years, as well as for the young people involved in Children at Bicocca, the company’s welfare activity for employees’ children. This is designed to help families when schools are closed, and those involved had an opportunity to meet Maestro Accardo and unlock the secrets of music.

This year, the desire to seek out highly original new harmonies has led to the creation of a work that conveys the sounds of the digital factory – that of the Pirelli Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese. The sounds and rhythms of production in the departments gave rise to Il canto della Fabbrica, a composition commissioned by the Pirelli Foundation from the composer and violist Francesco Fiore and specially designed for the violin of Maestro Salvatore Accardo. Led by the first violin Laura Gorna, Maestro Accardo’s Orchestra da Camera Italiana will perform the world premiere at the MITO SettembreMusica Festival, with two concerts entitled ‘La Fabbrica tra le Ciliegi’, putting the spotlight on the cherry trees along the side of the Pirelli factory in Settimo that inspired the composer and that will be the venue for one of the two evenings. ‘La Fabbrica tra le Ciliegi’ will be performed on two evenings of the Festival, which this year is devoted to the theme of Nature: the first will be held on 7 September at the Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato in Milan. The second, on 8 September, will see the music return to the Settimo Torinese Industrial Centre, building on the success of the concerts that were held there in 2010, 2011 and 2014.

Music returns to the factory with the new edition of the Festival MITO SettembreMusica, set to take place this year from 3rd to 21st September, consolidating the partnership with Pirelli now a decade old – since it began in 2007 – which is part of the relationships between the business world and the world of culture, a rapport that has always been promoted by Pirelli who has backing initiatives in the artistic, cultural and training spheres.

The theme this year is dedicated to nature, and it is addressed through the reworking of the sounds of the digital factory, from the Pirelli industrial pole in Settimo Torinese, through the performance of the opera entitled Il Canto della Fabbrica (The Factory’s Song),a composition commissioned by the Pirelli Foundation from the composer and violinist Francesco Fiore and specifically devised for the violin of Maestro Salvatore Accardo accompanied by the Maestro’s Italian Chamber Orchestra and with the violin played by Laura Gorna, who is to be the first to perform it during the Festival MITO with two concerts, in Milan and Turin, entitled “La Fabbrica tra i Ciliegi” (The Factory among Cherry trees).

Two appointments: the first in Milan on 7th September at the Studio Melato theatre and the second on 8th September inside the Pirelli factory in Settimo Torinese. This confirms the bond between the workplace and music venues, an experience which has already been made in the past, as one of the expressions of that industrial humanism that has distinguished Pirelli throughout history.

The partnership with the Festival dates back in fact to 2007. With the 2010 edition of the Festival, music enters the factory: the old factory in Settimo Torinese hosted “I Fiati di Torino”, from the RAI Symphony Orchestra from Turin, for a performance based on music by Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, Berio and Gabrieli, Saglietti and Stravinskij before an audience of more than four hundred spectators.

After the success of this edition, in 2011 musicians returned to the factory: this time the “I Pomeriggi Musicali” orchestra, directed by Maestro Luca Pfaff, in the refurbished facilities of the Settimo Torinese Industrial Pole. The programme envisaged the performance of pieces by Darius Milhaud, suite from the ballet “Le boeuf sur le toit”, Artur Honegger, “Pastoral d’été”, Manuel De Falla, suite from the ballet “El Amor Brujo”, Igor Stravinskij, “Suite no. 1 and no. 2 for small orchestra”.

In September 2014, the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra played in the facilities of the Settimo Torinese Industrial Pole. The musicians directed by Micha Hamel played the “Symphony no.1 in C major  op. 21” and the “Symphony no.7 in A major op. 92” by Ludwig van Beethoven, to the applause of a thousand spectators. For “La Settima a Settimo”, as usual, many Pirelli employees were among the crowd.

Again in 2016, Pirelli hosted in the Auditorium of its Headquarters – built around the historic cooling tower of the Milan Bicocca plant – “I figli di Beethoven” (Beethoven’s children): the musicians of the ”Altus Trio” performed the “Trio in E-flat major op. 70 no. 2” by Ludwig van Beethoven and the “Trio in F major op. 80” by Robert Schumann.

For this year’s edition, the factory returns to playing the starring role not just as the stage backdrop but also as the inspiring muse for the new piece of music.