Friday, March 22 at the Muse – Science Museum of Trento we present “ANIMA. Inside the sound of the Alps”, the exhibition dedicated to the homonymous project, which will be possible to visit in the museum lobby from 23 March to 7 July 2024. It will also be an opportunity to listen live, for the first time, the voice of the four instruments made of wood by Avez del Prinzep, in the performances of the Pegreffi Quartet.
Together with me, Helen Wiesinger, curator of the exhibition, Francesca Moncada di Paternò, president of Le Dimore del Quartetto, Michele Lanzinger, co-creator of the project ANIMA and former director of the Muse, Gianmaria Stelzer, the luthier who made these special instruments, and Damiano Zanocco, the forester of the Altipiani Cimbri, from which the tree that gave life to all this comes from.
On this page you can book: start at 18:30 with institutional greetings; to follow musical and spoken speeches and final toast.
On the following days of that weekend, Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 March, you can again listen to the Pegreffi Quartet (Emma Parmigiani violin, Inesa Baltatescu violin, Maria Giulia Tesini viola, Lorenza Baldo cello) playing the instruments in white fir thanks to the initiative “La stanza dell’ANIMA”: these are short sessions of musical samples by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms and Ravel in the performances of the Pegreffi Quartet in a hall of Palazzo delle Albere, in collaboration with Le Dimore del Quartetto. An experience for enthusiasts but also just for curious.
ANIMA is a project about trees, sound and music. It tells the realization of a string quartet made with soundboards and soul in white fir, using the precious wood of the Avez del Prinzep, naturalistic testimony of the Altipiani Cimbri in the Municipality of Lavarone, crashed in 2017 with the incredible height of 52 meters and 250 years of life. It was the tallest white fir in Europe, today it is the symbol of the Alps and their climate transformation.
ANIMA tells the story of a new life, a form of regeneration, a beautiful story that leads to know the trees and the genesis of a musical instrument.
The exhibition proposes through explanatory panels the natural and artisanal phases and characteristics of woodworking starting from the tree and its majestic growth, and then describe the care and refinement of the art of building the string instruments that make up the classical dimension of the string quartet.
ANIMA is a dream, a challenge to the time: to give a new life to the Prince’s Fir as long as the one he has already lived, so that his crash is not an end but only the axis of symmetry between a before and a after centuries. And only quality string instruments can allow such a gamble, because even today humanity can hear the voice of violins made 400 years ago. ANIMA is a beautiful story, that will travel, and that from the beginning I wished could be told by an exhibition and a show, to bring the voice of the Prince’s Fir and his message to as many people as possible.
Thanks to the MUSE and the Avez del Prinzep Enhancement Committee for believing in this dream.