Enrico Corli’s Lecture-Concerts

Alongside the “Human Space” Exhibition

The RIV Foundation, alongside the Human Space exhibition—staged at the Church of San Mamiliano in Palermo (open to visitors until 10 January)—is presenting a series of lecture-concerts devoted to themes central to today’s artistic debate and closely connected to the exhibition itself.

The first lecture-concert will be held on Friday 19 December at 5:30 pm at the Oratorio di Santa Cita, part of the San Mamiliano complex, featuring Enrico Corli, principal cello of the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra. The focus of the event will be art, artists, and their ability to move beyond stereotyped horizons, inviting us to rethink human identity in relation to social transformation—while safeguarding its complexity and its dimension of freedom and spirituality. These are key themes in Human Space, and ones that can also be explored through music.

Corli will introduce the audience to the musical structure, share anecdotes about performance practice, and present aspects of the lives of the five composers whose works are featured in the programme. The lecture-concerts will also explore each proposed theme from a contemporary perspective.

“The idea is that we all know what madness is,” Enrico Corli explains. “We know its meaning in the visual arts or in literature; we know how it has been understood across the centuries, how it has been analysed or explored. But do we know what madness means in music? Is it the same thing—does it carry the same meaning? It’s important to understand that the concept is different, because in music ‘madness’ emerged as a need to externalise virtuosity, a liberation from forms that were carefully written and structured. Since it arose around 1600—rather late compared to other arts—La Folia differs from what one might imagine: it has a rigid structure within which everyone is free to express themselves and improvise. In music, then, madness is not the absence of rules, as in other arts; it is the presence of rules within which one can navigate and explore.”

“The goal,” says Patrizia Monterosso, President of the RIV Foundation, “is to create a form of music-as-relationship that fosters active listening, offering that opportunity for deeper engagement which music gives us as a pars construens, in contrast to a society that equates normality with conformity. These lecture-concerts also highlight music’s communicative function on the social plane: its capacity to place us in relation with ourselves, with others, and with society.”

In particular, on Friday 19 December, the concert will explore the theme of madness: a recurring musical motif in European history, known for its ability to transform itself through continual variations—from the French Baroque of Marais, to the intense virtuosity of Bach and Biber, and on to its contemporary reincarnations in Walton and Sollima. “La Folia,” continues Monsignor Giuseppe Bucaro, “becomes a guiding thread that reveals the tension between structural rigour and expressive freedom. The listener will be guided on a journey weaving together harmony, drama, and rhythmic invention, underscoring how an ancient theme—and the very concept of madness—can be renewed across different eras.”

The lecture-concert will be introduced by Patrizia Monterosso, President of the RIV Foundation, and will conclude with remarks by Monsignor Giuseppe Bucaro.

M. Marais — Les Folies d’Espagne
J. S. Bach — Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 (Sarabande)
H. I. F. Biber — Passacaglia from the Rosary Sonata XVI
W. Walton — Passacaglia for Solo Cello
J. S. Bach — Chaconne from Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin, BWV 1004
G. Sollima — La follia