SYMPOSIA

UN NUEVO HUMANISMO PARA EL TERCER MILENIO
París, en la UNESCO, 3 y 4 mayo 1999

En la perspectiva del inicio del nuevo milenio, el Consejo Pontificio de la Cultura junto con el Centro Católico Internacional para la UNESCO, organizó un coloquio internacional en la sede de la UNESCO y con el patrocinio de ésta, los días 3 y 4 de mayo de 1999. Tal coloquio se inscribe en la serie de iniciativas emprendidas por el Consejo de la Cultura orientadas a promover un nuevo humanismo cristiano como fundamento imprescindible de una nueva sociedad. "Para un humanismo cristiano al alba del tercer milenio" es también el tema de la próxima asamblea plenaria del Consejo de la Cultura que se celebrará el mes de noviembre de 1999 en Roma.

El Centro Católico Internacional para la UNESCO (CCIC), constituido en 1947, agrupa y coordina la presencia de las Organizaciones Internacionales Católicas ante UNESCO, bajo la dirección de Gilles Deliance. El CCIC actúa como canal de mediación entre la UNESCO y el mundo del asociacionismo católico. Las Organizaciones Internacionales Católicas, (OIC) presentes en los más diversos campos de la cultura, desempeñan un papel insustituible en la promoción y afirmación de un nuevo modelo de hombre.

El Congreso, tras el saludo de acogida del Sr. Bindé Director de Prospectiva de la UNESCO, se abrió el lunes 3 de mayo con la conferencia inaugural del Cardenal Paul Poupard, Presidente del Pontificio Consejo de la Cultura. A lo largo de los dos días del Coloquio, se desarrollaron las intervenciones de tres relatores que presentaron las ponencias-marco, base para la discusión subsiguiente: el Prof. Jaime Antúnez Aldunate, director de la revista Humanitas de la Pontificia Universidad de Chile analizó las características fundamentales de un humanismo pleno; el Prof. Henri Awit, responsable de la Escuela de Formación del Profesorado para las escuelas católicas del Líbano, trató acerca de los aspectos de la educación para un humanismo cristiano; finalmente, el Sr. Léon Zeches, director del Luxemburger Wort, habló de las relaciones interpersonales como base de construcción de este nuevo humanismo en el ámbito social y de los medios de comunicación. Moderó los debates el P. Bernard Ardura, Secretario del Consejo Pontificio de la Cultura.

Por su parte, las Organizaciones Internacionales Católicas interveninieron a través de diversos representantes de las mismas, analizando diferentes aspectos de la actividad en los campos en que están presentes. Asociaciones y organizaciones internacionales católicas operantes en el campo de la educación, la caridad, los medios de comunicación social, con acentos procedentes de Europa, América Latina, Africa, completaron el cuadro de conjunto.

Frente a la situación actual, rica de posibilidades y esperanzas, pero no exenta de tensiones y amenazas, la pregunta por el hombre, su ser y su vida, su sentido y su futuro, adquiere una amplitud nueva. En esta encrucijada histórica, en el umbral del tercer milenio, la Iglesia presenta un modelo de humanismo nuevo y perenne a la vez, cuya novedad brota de la fuente inextinguible del Evangelio. La Iglesia, como lugar de creación de comunidades donde se hace visible el amor que supera la muerte y el odio, se convierte en esta etapa de la historia una vez más en madre y maestra de civilizaciones y pueblos, creadora de una cultura nueva.

[Français]
Les 3 et 4 mai 1999, sÂ’est tenu à Paris, au Palais de lÂ’UNESCO, le Colloque international sur Un nouvel humanisme pour le nouveau millénaire. Les participants ont analysé les caractéristiques fondamentales dÂ’un humanisme plénier, puis ils ont traité des aspects de lÂ’éducation à lÂ’humanisme chrétien. Enfin, ils ont mis en lumière les relations interpersonnelles comme fondements indispensables pour la construction de ce nouvel humanisme dans le contexte de la vie sociale et des moyens de communication.

[English]
A New Humanism for the New Millennium was the theme of the international colloquium held at Paris at the UNESCO quarters on 3rd and 4th May, 1999. The Colloquium analysed the fundamental characteristics of a complete humanism, next dealt with the aspects of education for a Christian humanism; and finally presented interpersonal relationships as the basis of building this new humanism in the social sphere and in the field of the means of communication.

LUCA MARENZIO 400 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH
A Study Day and Concert in his honour

Rome, May 29, 1999

The sacred music of Luca Marenzio (Coccaglio 1553/54 – Rome 1599) has been unfairly overshadowed by profane production for four centuries. To this end, which in its turn represents a point of departure for a further study in depth, experts met to participate in a day of study organised on Saturday, 29 May, 1999, by the Pontifical Council for Culture together with the National Academy of Saint Cecilia and the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the death of the Italian composer.

Marenzio, a child-singer at the Cathedral of Brescia, in 1572 entered the service of Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo and in 1578 that of Cardinal Luigi dÂ’Este of Rome, who permitted him to widen his sphere of activity and to maintain contacts with the other courts and chapels at Mantova, Padova and Venice. Already during this period his name came to be associated with madrigal compositions to which he bore a most refined testimony. In 1589 he moved to Rome, in the service of Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini who in 1595 introduced him to the court of Sigismondo I of Poland in Warsaw. Three years later, we find him at Venice and then again at Rome, where probably he was one of the musicians at the papal court.

These brief biographical notes testify to a cultured and aristocratic spirit in Marenzio that, while being open to the diverse European influences, remained fully bound to the tradition of polyphonic madrigal music which he carried to the highest perfection. In fact, he exploited the typical form of madrigalism exalting however, its expressive dimension by bringing about a perfect fusion between word and sound. His works spread immediately throughout Europe, and today are rightly considered the most illustrious and perfect representation of the last period of polyphonic madrigal music and one of the greatest Italian composers of the sixteenth century. Forgotten then for many years, the commemorative anniversary of the fourth centenary of his death has assumed a particular meaning: that of binding oneself again, through his sacred production, certainly that less known, to the great musical season of Italian sixteenth century, and to the artistic, religious and cultural life of papal Rome of that flourishing and precious century.

Cardinal Poupard, inaugurating the dayÂ’s proceedings dedicated to the musician, for these reasons stated that "...Marenzio helps us, with his musical notes, to discover how much God speaks in the language of music, which is the language of pure and eternal beauty: art and faith, in fact, constitute the City of God among human beings. Thus music makes the soul draw nearer to faith, while faith, and Marenzio witnesses to this in an exceptional manner, makes fruitful the artistic faculties of man".

Some among the more famous scholars of sacred polyphony who attended the Seminar, were Agostino Ziino, who moderated the debate, Bruno Cagli, himself the President of Academy of Santa Cecilia – who confirmed the importance of collaboration between the renowned Institution presided over by him and the Pontifical Dicastery, underlining the important results for musical culture such as the day devoted to Marenzio – and two scholars of international repute, the Englishman James Chater and the Scot, Noel O’Regan, both coming from a land in which the cult for the Italian polyphonist is linked to the fact that one of the few great English musicians of all times, John Dowland, learned the art from Marenzio himself.

Both scholars, though admitting that actually, as regards sacred music, the production of Marenzio is certainly of lesser identity and importance with respect to the profane madrigal, acknowledged however, thanks to their recent studies in-depth, that the "sacred" in Marenzio occupies a place of incomparable importance, even if it is still something to be discovered altogether, because his motets are not considered a secondary complementary production with regard to the madrigal, but assume a "notable" worth as a contribution to the development of a Roman style in the period that follows the Council of Trent.

For this reason the commemorative day in honour of the musician of Coccaglio, but who was Roman by adoption, was organised within the ambit of the important initiatives of the Pontifical Council for Culture has in mind, thanks to the collaboration with the more famous among the music Institutions of Rome. Because, and it is always as Cardinal Poupard who recalled it, "the collaboration between the Church and the musicians can and must find a new impulse, a new enthusiasm, a new fruitful collaboration, through these institutional and friendly channels".

A splendid proof of this renewed understanding as the climax of the day was the concert held in the most famous Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina of Rome, the place where the mortal remains of the musician rest. The Parish Priest of the Basilica, Mons. Franco Cutrone, who welcomed with enthusiasm so many personalities from the world of culture and art who packed the splendid church, was visibly moved also because of the meaning that the evening assumed, that it was preceded by a gesture of clear importance: Cardinal Poupard had in fact unveiled a stone donated by the Academy in memory of the concert, in which more than six hundred persons participated, thronging every corner of the Basilica.

Maestro Rinaldo Alessandrini directed the Polyphonic Choir of the Academy of Saint Cecilia (sixteen splendid voices to rekindle a polyphonic tradition snuffed in the course of years) in a concert that hinged on an anthology of motets of five, eight, nine and twelve voices, pages resplendent and most human, in which simplicity soared to the highest levels that mirrored the soul and faith lived interiorly and artistically.

Alessandrini himself had illustrated in the afternoon, during the Convention, some basic principles pertinent to the execution of vocal music of the sixteenth century, pausing in the first place on the use of the "vibrato" of the voices, explaining how it may be absolutely avoided, and declaring how the rendition could be the most natural possible.

The understanding which he most happily demonstrated in the concert was lustily applauded by a public not certainly used to the polyphonic music of the five hundred. But listened to in a "religious" silence, completely involved by a tangible, precious and fascinating setting of sounds and lights, in which truly "art and beauty, together with the spirit and faith – as Cardinal Poupard recalled before the concert could begin – are capable of awakening the amazement of man".

-   -   -

[Français]
Monsieur lÂ’Abbé Luca Pellegrini du Conseil Pontifical de la Culture, présente la journée dÂ’étude et le concert organisés en lÂ’honneur du musicien Luca Marenzio, par le Conseil Pontifical de la Culture, lÂ’Académie Nationale de Sainte-Cécile et lÂ’Institut Pontifical de Musique Sacrée, pour célébrer le IV^e centenaire de la mort de ce compositeur italien. Marenzio nous aide, avec ses mélodies, à découvrir combien Dieu parle à travers le langage de la musique, langage de beauté pure et éternelle.

[Español]
Don Luca Pellegrini, del Consejo Pontificio de la Cultura, presenta la jornada de estudio y el concierto en honor del músico Luca Marenzio, organizados por el Consejo Pontificio de la Cultura junto con la Academia Nacional de Santa Cecilia y el Pontificio Instituto de Música Sacra, con ocasión del IV centenario de la muerte del compositor italiano. Marenzio nos ayuda con sus notas, a descubrir cómo Dios habla en el lenguaje de la música, que es lenguaje de belleza pura y eterna.