In the Salon of Angelica Kauffman with Raritan Players
Thu, Mar 28
|Italian Academy at Columbia University
Time & Location
Mar 28, 2024, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Italian Academy at Columbia University, 1161 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA
About the event
Although Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) made her career in painting, she was also a gifted musician. In Rome in the 1780s, she hosted a salon that featured her own musical performances on guitar and on the English piano that she owned, as well as performances by some of the leading poetic improvisers of the age, such as Fortunata Fantastici and Teresa Bandettini. Her guests included local dignitaries as well as international travelers such as the English writer Hester Thrale Piozzi and the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In this program, the Raritan Players imagine an evening in Kauffman’s home, in which music mixed with discussion of literature and visual art. Selections include music by Pergolesi, Handel, Corelli, and Corona Schröter, as well as Scottish airs and musical-poetic recitation formulas that were used by poetic improvisers in Rome.