IN BETWEEN THE GREAT RIVER AND THE MUSIC
"Beppe Cantarelli, Music In Between Earth & Heaven
The "low valley" ("la bassa") and with it the Great River. A gorgeous marriage where you can place everything and something more. And to whomever should ask him or herself - and I'm truly sorry for them...- how is it possible to have something more than everything, I answer that in this corner of the world, in between earth and heaven, there is for sure something more than everything. This is what people has understood, people like Beppe (Cantarelli for the arts and history...) who knows how to combine art, music, voice, feelings and faith in order to achieve a result that goes far beyond that "everything" we were talking about. The "low valley" of the Po river in northern Italy, is land of strong feelings. There, where hearing becomes feeling. When I hear Beppe's music I feel a full time man of the "low valley", born north of the Po river which is the same as been born south of the Great River. The strong feeling that is not only a feeling. There are inside the calm and the violent strength of the River. There are inside the fog and the sun that hits our heads. There are inside the strong seasons with the strong colours, that only the human insipience is reducing to small climatic changes with a background of trash equally distributed in the environment and time. There is inside the character of people with their hearts and minds strongly connected in between themselves and with others. And there is him, the Beppe, who while is talking about Her, he makes her saying "It Was Not The Wind, It Was An Angel." A "Magnificat (My Soul, Extols)" on its own right that follows, and at the same time preludes, to that "my soul extols God" that Giuseppe Cantarelli (you must write his name this way during these special events...) has created and performed for Pope John Paul II. What can we say when one asks the Lord to sing to him His Silence, to sing to him his Sorrow and to scent the Hate, and this because one can not and should not sing about Hate? What can we say about "Let Me Sing With The Angels" that was conceived in a small church in the "low valley", during a meeting with a priest who today still celebrates His Holy Mass in that same church? Today Beppe has taken another step. He has joined a reality that comes from far away, very far away, yet so close to everyone's spirituality. That same spirituality that exists in all the Humanity, even in those people who deny it for interest, ignorance or more. Beppe has joined the Temple, the Temple where each one of us lives, even the ones who do not realize that. "Sing To Me, Oh My Lord" was born, and many others. Monday, in Costamezzana, nearby Noceto, in the evening, Beppe will sing his music. He won't be alone. Who sings is never alone with his music. It is the week when the Pilgrim Virgin Mary from Fatima arrives with the helicopter and stays with the congregation after being away for four years. It is the week when a priest celebrates his 60th of priesthood, an enviable goal. It is the time to understand the meaning of many things we write, we sing, we say. The Great River unifies us, in between earth and heaven. With it but also with the Beppe and all the ones who surround us, I would like to know what is love "really," as one of his compositions asks. In that "really" there is the entire human nature, doubts, hopes and certainties of man. "The love that moves the sun and all the other stars," as also Dante has handed down at the end of his Comedy, that is "Divine" with a reason.