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FAMOUS CHARACTERS |
  
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| At Recanati, the home town of the poet Giacomo Leopardi, you have to knock at the door of his house if you want to know him, understand him and love him more. His direct heirs, the noble family of the Conti Leopardi, perpetuate his memory, caring for his rooms, his library and his works. Everything has been left just as it was: the family portraits on the walls, the poet's books and his first verses. Outside there are sunny silent streets, some rather pretentious buildings and severe homes that represented the rather enclosed world from which the poet fled in search of a freedom that was hard to find. But in his short life, his was to remain but a lonely voice and Recanati more of a torment than a consolation. Another native of the Marches who left home and seemed to share a similar fate to Leopardi was Giovambattista Pergolesi. Born at Jesi in 1710, he died at Pozzuoli (Naples) at the early age of 26. He worked at the "Conservatoire of the Poor of Jesus Christ" of which he had been a pupil. Five years of intense actvity made him the greatest musician in the eighteenth-century, to the extent that, for the whole of the century, his work was imitated and forget by second-rate publishers and colleagues. This led to the numerous legends that made up the "Pergolesi case". His early death gave rise to fantastic stories, such as the hypothesis of a tragic and unhappy love, creating parallels with other geniuses from the same part of the country, among them the artist Raphael. Beethoven had works by Pergolesi in his library, although he had spoken of him in rather critical terms to Gioacchino Rossini, who reported the conversation to Wagner in 1860. But perhaps these meeting never really took place and are only part of the local legend and folklore. The people hereabouts are very fond of their famous sons and this love is fed not only by culture, but also by anecdotes, stories of passion and magic occurrences. Hence the mystery, ambiguity and sometimes the duality in the lives and works of musicians such as Gaspare Spontini, Giovambattista Pergolesi and even Rossini. Pergolesi from Jesi and Rossini from Pesaro both wrote sacred music and comic opera: both were insuperable in the "Serva Padrona" and the "Stabat Mater", just like Mozart, sacred and profane, religious and ironic, with total changes of scene and atmosphere, as rapid as their life stories. Of the three, only Spontini was to die in the Marches, retiring from public life and devoting himself to charitable works. In his home town of Maiolati there is a splendid little theatre and a little Museum, lest we forget, but especially so that we can continue along the road of art and culture that is one of the hidden roads in the hinterlands of the Marches.
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