A Keats-Shelley200 Music Recital in the Bay of Naples

On 7 May 2022 we were joined in the Bay of Naples by mezzo soprano Anna Tonna and the Duo Savigni on 19th century guitar and piano. We are pleased to share a selection of the songs performed from that evening, which was part of our Keats-Shelley200 initiative to mark the bicentenaries of the deaths of Keats and Shelley in Italy and to explore their extraordinary legacies worldwide.
Naples served as Shelley's home from 1 December 1818 to 28 February 1819, and inspired him to write some of his feistiest political poems. And it was to Naples that Keats sailed from England in the autumn of 1820, before he moved by land to his final destination, Piazza di Spagna 26 in Rome, which is now known as the Keats-Shelley House. The location for the recital was chosen because of its proximity to the Hotel Villa di Londra, where John Keats lodged in 1820.
The musical programme was inspired by the city of Naples and moved from dark to light in mood, the light being a homage to romantic era Naples. The event was presented by Giuseppe Albano, Curator of the Keats-Shelley House, and concluded with a lecture by Keats biographer Professor Nicholas Roe, which may be watched here: • The Footsteps of John ...
The Keats-Shelley House is a museum dedicated to the second generation English romantic poets who lived in, and were inspired by, Italy, and housed in the final home of John Keats, who died there in 1821. The House is close to the place where Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley stayed in 1819, and directly in front of the building where Lord Byron stayed in 1817.
We really hope you'll enjoy this music recital as much as we did. Subscribe to us on RUclips for many more videos coming soon.

[@sheilac5319]

This was captivating!
Many thanks for making it available to view.

[@basittalii]

I wrote this poem on John Keats some 15 years ago. I have quit poety, but I want to present this poem to Keats-Shelley Memorial House. (Sorry if my way is quite untoward)
Ode to John Keats
More than twenty years have passed since then,
And most I used to see those days, have changed;
I can not hear and talk to most of men
I used to talk from here and there wide ranged.
Where have they gone from me? Of course, they have
Gone to some city, state or foreign land,
And settled down to never come here back,
Or lain in some cold grave,
Or taken rest some where imprisoned, and
No notes to hear and read from them, Alack.
Yet there is something constant in my mind,
Some thoughts and dreams and visions of those days,
When I go through your poems, I feel and find
Those youthful years of life lie there always.
The memories of your Odes are fresh and green!
How great I loved to read them late at nights!
And dreamed to write one like them from my own,
That no one could have seen,
By bard who lived with different tongue and sights,
And who more than you two cent years had grown.
I do have themes to write on as you did,
But lack the force you put them down in Odes
With, the force I may have found in mid
Of fake and genuine springs, of muses' abodes.
Why I don’t feel to write immortal themes,
As you did: Nightingale and Grecian Urn,
And Autumn, all times favourite on my part?
Quite obviously the schemes
Of things have changed, and written word in turn
Has lost its worth, especially in Art.
-------
Havi Shah

[@danaj.]

Fantastic! :)

[@photographedemode]

❤