Roman Holiday

Reprise.....

We are flying south, winging away over the clouds, beyond the Alps.....

Yes, we are all going on a...

Amor vincit omnia

But, ok, let's get a few things straight....  I am neither Gregory Peck, nor am I travelling with 95-year-old Aubrey Hepburn....  But I am going on holiday to Rome, and we are, for a moment, in the Palazzo Colonna, where Joe Bradley last saw Princess Ann....

It is quieter today, the Rococo decorations half asleep in anticipation of an upcoming rugby match:

Though I still feel a sense of dislocation as I turn away....

No!  Wait!  This isn't me....

So.  Where were we?  Ah yes, the Colosseum:

No!  The Colosseum is in colour......

OK.  So we take a ride on a scooter:

I said - a scooter:

No!  Not an E-Scooter.....

Nor an E-Bike....

For St Peter's sake!  Where's William Wyler when you need him?  We'll take a bus.....

And we'll watch the full moon rise over Santa Trinità dei Monti

Omnia mutantur

Let me take you by the hand, and I will show you the rubble-filled streets of the Caput Mundi.....

It is morning, and I have parked the bike.....

So let us stroll, from Santa Maria Maggiore:

The last resting place of Pope Francis:

Through the Terme di Caracalla:

To the Aventino, where the curious queue to peek at San Pietro through a keyhole in the Piazza Cavaliere di Malta....

While others make for doors, such as those of Santa Sabina, that are more open:

Then down the Clivio di Rocca Savella:

To watch the swollen Tevere wash the shores of the Isola Tiberina:

And then across to Trastevere, where I lived so many years ago.  We pause, briefly, to listen to the Benedictine nuns chanting their prayers in the Basilica of Santa Cecilia, the patron saint of music....

Then we lunch at the ever popular Fieramosca, in Piazza dei Mercanti, once owned by my eccentric acquaintance Remington, and the favourite locality of my late wife, Amanda. I raise a glass of Colli Albani wine to her, on the second anniversary of her death, thinking of our girls.....

Ad vitam aeternam

The following day, blessed by sunshine, we revisit the Colosseum, then walk on the Palatine Hill, looking back over the Arch of Constantine, then watching the Ring-necked parakeets feasting on oranges in the Orti Farnesiani:

The Musei Capitolini, which were founded in 1471 by pope Sixtus IV, contain many of the greatest treasures of Rome, from the modest Capitoline Venus, upstairs in the Palazzo Nuovo:

To Gian Lorenzo Bernini's bust of Medusa, whose shadows seem to writhe across the floor:

And I am tempted to offer assistance to a Dying Gaul whose marbles seem to be in perpetual pain:

Elsewhere in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, illuminations cast diverse shades to tell their stories:

While, from the Terazza Caffarelli, outside the Caffetteria dei Musei Capitolini, the sun is dying beyond the Teatro di Marcello (inaugurated in 12 BCE by Emperor Augustus). The upper floors of this ancient pile actually constitute the 11,000 square metre Palazzo Orsini, which was acquired by Iris Origo, author of War in the Val d'Orcia, and her husband in 1950.  In 2012 the Palazzo was put on the market by Iris's daughter for £26 million.

Looking out the other way, from under the Palazzo Senatorio, the view over the Forum at dusk is occupied by the spirits of ancient Rome, whispering around the Arch of Septimus Severus:

Night falls, again.....  As it seems to every day.....

Aubrey and I - sorry, Greg - sorry, Joe - retire to rest in the Via Margutta, near where Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina lived.... 

Rome takes on a different life after dark, with government buildings washed in the tricolour, and the detritus of millennia lost in obscurity. 

Then the city perks up on a sunny day, though grey skies and rain don't wash away all the attraction. 

Tempus fugit

In a packed week's holiday, there isn't enough time to do more than scratch at the superficialities of history, but we do our best. I could tell you about Frascati, where we lunch with friends in the caves of the Osteria Fraschetta Trinca. Or I could wax lyrical about lunch at Arianna al Borghetto, after a dove-grey morning under the pines of Ostia Antica. I could tell you about meeting Enrico Terrinoni (President of the James Joyce Italian Foundation and translator into Italian of Ulysses and a parts of Finnegan's Wake) in The Fiddler's Elbow.... Or I could expound on the beautiful cloister of the Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura, or the extraordinary juxtapositions of the marvellous marbles alongside the generators of the Centrale Montemartini.....

But tempus fugit and so I will be brief. Amongst the unforgettables within this whirligig stay, I rank the National Roman Museum, Baths of Diocletian:

And the neighbouring Palazzo Massimo is remarkable for many classical items.... mosaics, frescoes, statues and bronzes, such as this one of  a Boxer at Rest (the one on the right):

In the Galleria Borghese the statues seem to be in the act of flight, while their custodians seem indifferent. It is a wonderful gallery, but I cannot help but feel a tad claustrophobic at this stage....

Better the outside. Better the air, the sky, the rain (if it has to be.....)

We pass through Piazza Navona, where Charlie Chaplin is anxious to gain my acquaintance.....

And then, from the Terrazza dell’Angelo of the Castel Sant'Angelo, we look toward Michelangelo's great dome,

Or down onto the flooding Tiber,

And then make our way toward the Basilica di San Pietro, where the faithful align themselves with umbrellas akimbo in the great Piazza:

Alea jacta est

I lived in Rome for years, and hithered and thithered day after day, falling asleep some times beneath statues, or making my way home with a fresh , warm, cream-filled cornetto under a vast yellow moon.  

Now, a visitor on holiday, the city envelopes me and my friend, enticing me to imagine the past world, encouraging me to marvel at the artistry, the skills, the imagination of our predecessors.  How amazing, I think, that some thousands of years ago people could do that?

And then I think.....  Where are we now?  How amazing, perhaps, that we are still no better than 'they' were 'then'....  How is it that Nero or Caligula, or Trajan are still with us, toga or suit, tonsure or wig?

I love Rome. I feel at ease here, even though it is no longer my home. From the eager tourist by the Fontana della Barcaccia at the foot of the Spanish Steps:

To the umbrella girls a space away, photographed in front of I'll Be Your Mirror by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos....

I have lost count of the times I have visited Rome, and that doesn't include the years I lived in the city, but I am repeatedly inspired by what I find..... Nowadays, for me, it is always a Holiday, and, perhaps, that is something I/we should appreciate as life begins to slip away?  As time goes by.....

Ex nihilo nihil

With sincere thanks to my friends in Rome, and with many thanks to my companion on this trip.

As Scotland lose to Italy in the pouring rain, 

As the clouds cover the face of the earth, it is time to return 'home'.... a concept that gradually loses meaning in this dizzy, worrying world.....  

Carpe diem

*****

For my B E J

*****

Private Passions

Dreaming of Private Passions
 

The composer and broadcaster Michael Berkeley has presented Private Passions on BBC Radio 3 for thirty years, inviting celebrities to choose and discuss various pieces of music.  The guests are all distinguished in their respective fields.  I will never be invited to take part, but it is fun to play the game, so here are my choices, with the proviso that, with the infinitude of music to draw on, any set could be influenced by any number of factors, ranging from the weather to the season to the vagaries of relationships.
 
Mozart was one of the first names I learned in music.  His Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was on one of the 78s we had when I was a child, with those chords ringing out from a teak wind-up gramophone that sat on the floor of our front room.  Later, when trying to learn the piano, I accompanied someone on the clarinet in a version of the second movement from his Clarinet Quintet.  I am not a pianist, but there is one opus I can just about manage, and there is a certain pleasure in making the notes that were composed so long ago come to life.
 
Mozart – Fantasia in D Minor, K 397 – Angela Hewitt
 
I wish I had progressed further with the piano, but with the excitement of the sixties I was drawn to the guitar.  And this perhaps is why my next choice is Bob Dylan.  I still have the Freewheelin’ LP which I bought on September 16^th, 1965.  And I still play Don’t think twice, it’s all right.....  Bruce Langhorne’s guitar adds to the effect, but it is Dylan’s confident and articulate farewell to a relationship that is so memorable.  It isn’t his greatest song, perhaps, but then given the breadth (and depth!) or his production over more than sixty years, which is?
 
Bob Dylan – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
 
So, I played and sang through my teens, and I was in Dublin when the Dubliners were at their height, and I spent a memorable evening at the Old Triangle folk club where I met Luke Kelly. He had a wonderfully clear, controlled voice and as he closed his eyes, tilted back his head and let flow streams of perfectly balanced ballad history the place fell silent.  This is a beautiful song, written by Phil Coulter, which, despite being steeped in Ireland’s contemporary history, touches my own past in my imagination.  
 
The Dubliners featuring Luke Kelly – The Town I Loved So Well
 
I grew up to the Beatles, and they were absolutely a part of everyone’s life in the sixties. I sat though A Hard Day’s Night twice when it came out and hung on their every appearance on TV.  John Lennon had the edge, for me, and on the day he died, some friends and I were involved in a car crash (in Italy) and it seemed that the lights had gone out.  This song is an early one and is perhaps typical of the sixties where many pop songs were about holding hands or dancing or falling in love.  It is perhaps significant, however, that one of his last recorded songs was entitled Woman – I guess some of us grow up?
 
The Beatles – Girl: Rubber Soul
 
On April 28, 1973, Bob Marley and the Wailers came to play in the Great Hall at Lancaster University.  I was living and working in Manchester at the time, but went back up to Lancaster (where I had a toehold) for weekends and this was a great night.  There was something quite new about this music.....
 
Bob Marley and The Wailers – No Woman, No Cry
 
Later I moved to Sheffield and would drink in the pubs down West Street on a Saturday night, and one had a juke box with Rod Stewart’s version of What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me), and the song touched something within me, (though I didn’t listen).  My wife Amanda loved him too, and this recording of Have I told You Lately that I Love You? played her out at her funeral.
 
Rod Stewart – Have I told You Lately That I love You?
 
In 1976 I was appointed to teach at St George’s English School Rome, where my adult life took shape.  And as time went by, I picked up the guitar again and formed a folk group with a friend and some of the students and we performed concerts for Amnesty International, involving my guests Adrian Mitchell, Roger McGough and then Adrian Henri, and with others at the Folk Studio and The Fiddler’s Elbow.  They were good days, but I also became interested in Italian music, and history and I visited many churches and monasteries throughout Italy and learned about Palestrina. 

 

 
Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcelli – Sistine Chapel Choir, Massimo Palombella
 
I also went to the Opera in Rome and ‘discovered’ the joys of Verdi and Puccini. And somehow this led back to Mozart. I had a journalist friend who insisted we went to see Joseph Losey’s film of Don Giovanni, in which Kiri te Kanawa played Donna Elvira.  Later on, when we had moved back to the UK, I ran a school boarding house and Kiri’s son Tom was one of my charges.  On Friday, 20^th June, 1997, Amanda and I were invited to see Kiri at a gala performance at Hampton Court, a wonderful evening, with champagne in the dressing room after the show.  
 
Mozart – Cosi Fan Tutte - Soave sia il vento – Kiri te Kanawa.
 
The supporting artist that night was Andrea Bocelli, and as Amanda was particularly taken with him, the music we played to introduce her funeral was La Voce del Silenzio.
 
Andrea Bocelli – La Voce del Silenzio
 

E chi ho tanto amato

Dal mare del silenzio

Ritorna come un'onda

Nei miei occhi

E quello che mi manca

Nel mare del silenzio

Mi manca sai molto di più…

 
When I lived in Italy, I learned the language, and loved the life, and music was all around.  I particularly liked Francesco de Gregori and his friend Lucio Dalla, and more recently got hooked on a version of Alice, with Ligabue.
 
Francesco de Gregori, featuring Ligabue – Alice
 
As a counterpoint to this romanticism (which I acknowledge is a weakness) J S Bach is another of the masters to whom I listen again and again.  But......  How does one choose?  ‘Cello suites (as my brother Simon played at our mother’s funeral)? Organ works (my father and grandfather sometimes played these)?  Piano works (as I still try to play)?  

That is the difficulty.  And while I don’t really understand it, I can immerse myself in St John Passion and let it wash right through me.  The Matthew Passion, the Cantatas, etc, they all fill my mind with temporary glory, but I think St John is the best.

 
J S Bach – St John Passion – BWV 245 - Ruht Wohl, Ihr Heiligen Gebeine: The Choir of New College Oxford, Collegium Novum, Edward Higginbottom 
 
And now, in a different vein, I include a song by John Prine, about whose sharply witty and humanely warm lyrics I knew nothing before his untimely death in 2020 during the Coronavirus pandemic.  But his last song, written and recorded only shortly before his death helps me whenever I think back over all the private passions of my life.  And it is also one I have learned to play, perhaps as a counterpart to the earlier Dylan track.
 
John Prine - I Remember Everything
 
And another song which is quite a different thing, though also strongly emotional.  Elton John was not an artist I ever felt close to, but he is music, and some of his songs are inevitably a part of the backing tracks of our lives.  Your Song is a sweet example of how he, and his associates, captivated us in the ‘70s.  Pop music has an enormous reach, and in certain ways it is the twentieth century’s answer to all the opera house excitement in the days of Mozart and Puccini et al....
 
Elton John – Your Song
 
In closure, I would have chosen either Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia, an extraordinarily enduring work which a friend introduced to me when we were first at Lancaster University, or for The Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World, Op. 95, B. 178, composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1893, partly because it was one of the first LPs my brother Simon bought to play on our ‘modern’ record player, and also because, a year or more since the death of my wife, I am now entering a new world, and that sense of entering fresh territory excites me and gives me hope.

 

However, the music which I would like to fade away with, is that of Chopin.  Having visited the rooms in Vallombrosa, in Mallorca, where Chopin and Georges Sand spent an uncomfortable winter in 1839, I continue to wonder at the extraordinary melodic creativity that these pieces offer us.  And at the profound melancholy that sometimes settles upon me.  I just wish I could play it!
 
Chopin - Nocturne in G Major, Op. 37 No. 2 – played by Maurizio Pollini
 
 
All these pieces could be anyone’s choices, though anyone could choose infinite varieties of others. It’s a game.  I feel bad about leaving out so many artists and songs (where are Joe Cocker - You Are So Beautiful; Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You;  Merle Haggard - That's The Way Love Goes;  or Sandy Denny - Who Knows Where The Time Goes.... just for examples?)  

It's just a game.  

But ask for me tomorrow and you will find me a grave man......

 

Richard Gibbs

May 3rd 2025