SUPERNE ROTE: THE NAME

 

A name that shunned banality, monotony, repetitiveness, a name that reflected

the intimate essence of the newborn orchestra. The first will of Maestro Mattia Maria

Giusti, founder of the group, was the one to adopt the adjective for it

"philharmonic". Today this term is misunderstood by believing that it is attributed

necessarily to a large workforce. Instead, it indicates more properly, on the one hand, the love for music that unites the members of the group; on the other, the friendship that binds the musicians who are part of it. Two meanings expressed by a single composite term of Greek etymology:"filós", "friend"/"harmonia", "music".

Further, the orchestra's proper name comes from an intuition of his own director. A lover of the Divine Comedy, his interest in the Canticle of Purgatory prevails. Canto VIII: it is sunset time when the two poets, Virgil and Dante, in stop in the Valletta dei Principi, witness one of the most evocative scenes of the Poem.

In the distance they see an unknown soul whose mere wave of the hand draws the attention of the multitude of souls present inviting her to silence. The spirit then turns to Heaven with a prayerful gesture and begins to sing a hymn. The great host of souls the

echoes. The scene is thus described by the High One:

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"Te lucis ante" yes devoutly

came out of her mouth and with such sweet notes,

that made me go out of my mind;

and the others then sweetly and devotedly

to follow her throughout the entire hymn,

having their eyes to the "superne rote".

 

​Medieval man is convinced that the celestial vault and Paradise in particular are divided into mobile and concentric circles.

The movement of each circle produces celestial sounds and in each of them, entire hosts of Angels and souls sing melodies and harmonies of ineffable beauty. However, whoever looks at the celestial vault from the Earth is necessarily placed before the partial geometric perspective of concentric semicircles. The overlapping, by geometric transfer, of this last astronomical geometry with the planimetry of the modern orchestra is the interpretative key of the name Superne Rote. Rote are the ranks, the sections of the orchestra arranged in a hemicycle, above the music they interpret.

Superne Rote: the sky becomes orchestra