We are continuing our journey into the heart of Tuscany and our stop for today is Arezzo. Arezzo is the home of my Italian professor from this semester (ciao Arianna!) and I had heard a lot about it before I got there. On a side note, I had wanted to get some kind of panama/straw hat this summer and I found one here, so we’ll see if it makes it back across the rest of Italy and Spain!
Anyhow, personal vanities aside, Arezzo is a city very relevant to us as a choir because one of the precursors to modern music as we know it occurred there. The monk Guido d’Arezzo was the first to devise a system of writing down music using a staff and notes. This represented an important advancement from when people had to simply memorize music and, as a result, the music had to be written so it was easy to memorize. The use of the writing system allowed for the development of complex melodies and continued to expand into what we have today.
We got a brief walking tour of the city and began with a quick stop at the so-called people’s cathedral named “la Pieve.” This location is special because it was where the common people went to worship, as apposed to the great rich cathedral of the nobility with power and money. Outside, original painted “vulgar” scenes show miniature townspeople working and, along with tiny inscriptions of the names of the months of the year, they were able to depict the yearly cycle of harvesting, planting, and other household tasks.
Inside, the cathedral seemed more simple than others we had seen, but with some unique features. We were able to sing a few songs briefly and it did, however, have some great acoustics.
As we continued walking, we stopped at a piazza which was used to film a very famous scene of the movie La Vita รจ Bella (Life is Beautiful). It was a very unique square in that it was slanted down a hill, yet it had a lot of charm and reminded me very much of what an Italian piazza should look like. As you can see below with the before/after pictures, we saw the piazza empty first and then decided that it would make a great place for a Glee Club group photo, which we did right before our concert later that evening.
We then progressed to the Cathedral of Arezzo, located at the top of the town’s hill. This cathedral held the quarters of the bishop and was not only the seat of religion, but also of political and social power. What impressed me most about this structure was the stained glass windows. They were the tallest decorated windows I have ever seen. Aside from the coolness (in temperature) of the church, we were also able to see a monument dedicated to a pope who, in returning to Rome at a time of great sickness, actually died in Arezzo.
Finally, we finished our walking tour, went back to the hotel, and then headed back (in our penguin suits) to the church where we performed in Arezzo. The concert, shared with a group of very talented Italian female singers, was great and we all really enjoyed the time we had at the concert and with the other group.
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