Federico Maria Sardelli

Federico Maria Sardelli is mainly known as conductor, composer, musicologist and flautist.

In 1984 Federico Maria Sardelli founded the Baroque orchestra Modo Antiquo, with which he appears at major festivals and concert halls throughout Europe as both soloist and conductor. He is regularly invited to the most prestigious European concert halls.

He appears as a guest conductor with many symphony orchestras, including the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Since 2006 he has been principal guest conductor of the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Federico Maria Sardelli has made more than forty recordings as soloist and conductor, some of them in co-production with the German broadcast company Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WRD 3). He has twice been nominated for the Grammy Awards, the most prestigious recording prize, and he is one of the top artists of the Vivaldi Edition by Naïve.

Federico Maria Sardelli has been a notable protagonist in the Vivaldi renaissance of the past few years: he conducted the world premiere recording and performance of the operas Arsilda Regina di Ponto, Orlando Furioso, Tito Manlio, Motezuma, and Atenaide.

He recently conducted Handel’s Ariodante at the Opera House in Halle and Domenico Sarro’s Achille in Sciro at the Festival della Vale d’Itria, Italy.

Among his future engagements it is worth mentioning Juditha Triumphans at the Santiago de Compostela Festival and at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome, Alcina at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago del Chile.

Alongside his career in the concert hall, he is also extremely active as a musicologist. He is a member of the musicological committee of the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, and has published many musicological essays and critical editions (he is the author of the study Vivaldi's Music for Flute and Recorder, translated by Michael Talbot and published in the UK by Ashgate). He is general editor of the collection of facsimile editions Vivaldiana and of the Opere Incomplete (SPES, Florence). Peter Ryom has chosen him to be the person in charge of the continuing Vivaldi Catalogue (RV).

Federico Maria is also a painter, engraver and satirical writer, but that is another story.

Essays

*"La musica per flauto di Antonio Vivaldi", Fondazione G. Cini, Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, «Quaderni vivaldiani», XI, Firenze, Olschki, 2001, 250 pp.
*"Vivaldi’s Music for Flute and Recorder", Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007, 316 pp., translated by Michael Talbot.
*"Ciuffi rossi ed altri dettagli. Per una riconsiderazione dell’iconografia vivaldiana", «Informazioni e studi vivaldiani», 15, Milano, Ricordi, 1994, pp. 103-113.
*"Vivaldi a Ulm negli acquisti di Johann Kleinknecht", «Studi vivaldiani», 2, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2002, pp. 99-106.
*"Un nuovo ritratto di Antonio Vivaldi", «Studi vivaldiani», 2, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2002, pp. 107-114.
*"Il flauto nell'Italia del primo Settecento", «Ad Parnassum», vol. 2, Issue 3, April 2004, pp. 104-152.
*"Le opere giovanili di Antonio Vivaldi", «Studi vivaldiani», 5, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2005, pp. 45-78.
*"Una nuova sonata per flauto dritto di Vivaldi", «Studi vivaldiani», 6, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2006, pp. 41-51.

Critical Editions

*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Opera Seconda", facsimile edition, «Strumentalismo italiano», 86, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2001.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Arsilda Regina di Ponto", RV 700, Fondazione G. Cini, Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, 2001.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Concerti per traversiere RV 431 e RV 432", critical edition, «Antonio Vivaldi. Opere incomplete», *"Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2001.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, VI Concerti Opera Decima", facsimile edition, «Vivaldiana», 1, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2001.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Orlando Furioso, RV 728", Fondazione G. Cini, Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, 2002.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Concerti per fagotto RV 468 e RV 482", critical edition, «Antonio Vivaldi. Opere incomplete», 2, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2002.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Concerto in due cori per 2 violini principali e 2 organi RV 584", critical edition, «Antonio Vivaldi. Opere incomplete», 3, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2003.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Arie d'opera per Soprano", Milano, Ricordi, 2005
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Arie d'opera per Mezzosoprano e Contralto", Milano, Ricordi, 2005
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Concerto per 2 violini e 2 violoncelli RV 575", critical edition, «Antonio Vivaldi. Opere incomplete», 6, Firenze, S.P.E.S., 2006.
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Arie d'opera per Tenore", Milano, Ricordi, 2008
*"ANTONIO VIVALDI, Arie d'opera per Baritono e Basso", Milano, Ricordi, 2008

Comic works

Federico Maria Sardelli is a longtime collaborator of the satirical magazine Il Vernacoliere and is valued because of his satire of Italian mainstream culture, religion and religious kitsch. His nonsensical style resembles that of Monty Python and Daniele Luttazzi, but he has a recognizable style of his own rooted in Tuscan popular humor.

Notable characters and strips by Sardelli include:'Clem Momigliano', an improbable detective who uses a 9V-battery-fueled rocket (!) and cynically exploits his servant Negro Balongo. However, Balongo is not really a slave: he agrees to be the servant (for free) of Clem since he admires Clem, which is a hero.'Il Bibliotecario' ("The Librarian") : a peculiar comic strip made always of only two frames that are variations on a common theme : in the first the librarian greets an unnamed elderly woman with an (always slightly different) improbable and archaic sentence (e.g. something like "May I help thee, my Peripatetic Friend : if I can be a Spring of Fulfillment for you, please consider me at Yor Disposal"). The woman will always ask for an (always different, and always real) improbable ancient book (e.g. the "Gabinetto Armonico" of Filippo Bonanni). In the second frame the librarian will answer the elder woman with a totally unpredictable, often nonsensical and more often heavily offensive behaviour (for example by showing her his buttocks and asking her for advice on his new tattoo, or telling her he's the "King of Fried Food" and insulting her). 'Merda' ("Shit") : a mute strip where various characters are obsessed by their relationship with excrement of which they can never liberate themselves.'Circo' ("Circus"): about the adventures of a circus whose animals indulge in embarrassing activities like homosexual copulation just when the show is going on

But the talent of Federico Maria Sardelli as a comic author shows in more elaborate and unique gags like elaborate parodies of Padre Pio agiography or of Italian "sagra" (sort of popular festivals that Italian contadine communities once often organized ); the so-called Proesie ("Proetries") that are ineffable nonsense works sounding like:

Take care when
you move it from the sofa:
it's the very fragile
corpse of a dingo.

and the Più Belle Cartoline Del Mondo ("Most Beautiful Postcards Of The World"), that are elaborate stories built around kitsch 60's and 70's postcards (often representing children or couples), written in an absurdly baroque and archaic style and lexicon, full of wonderful linguistic inventions (like the fake Zodiacal signs : e.g. Cancellini Marika, born under the sign of the lifting...), and with exhilarating plots rich in politically uncorrectness and cynical unhappy ends ; a recurring character in these stories is that of the terrible dwarf Gargilli Gargiulo.

External links

*http://www.modoantiquo.com Modo Antiquo website
*http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Sardelli%2C_Federico_Maria (IMSLP website)