The soul of the prince does not die and resonates among the books: the true fairy tale of the Bianco Bianco of Lavarone

By our correspondent
The Grevi notes resonate under the fronds of the trees, in the hemicycle enclosed by a curtain of tree trunks. Come out of the cello of Giovanni Costantiniwhich with the archae makes not only vibrate the ropes but also the soul of its instrument. They are spreading around, at the same time they face silence and the basic buzz. There is no snow and the woods is not a real forest, it is the Bosco degli writers aboco, al Turin book salon. But the scene still evokes the music master of Lesson 21 Of Alessandro Bariccowhich sounds undaunted, alive notes, in the winter frost of a lake surrounded by imposing conifers, with the Pale di San Martino Stagliate in the background. But that is a Requiem, a farewell. The notes that resonate under the vault of Oval are instead the celebration of a restart, the metaphor of a song, the Singing of the princeThat Marco Albino Ferrari He narrated for the types of Ponte alle Grazie.

The « PrinceIt wasn’t human, it was superhuman. For its size – almost 6 meters of circumference for 55 in height who allowed him to overcome all the woods of Malga Laghettoa Lavarone -;; and for his age, 264 years in which, the Alpe Cimbra dominated by conquering that royal appellation by right. THE’Avez del Prhizepas it was called, was a fir white. The greatest and most majestic of all. Witness of the story that has passed under him. Survived that same story, to the two world wars that of wood trees throughout the Alpine arc have made strange. He presided over it like a sentry. Up to Night between 12 and 13 November 2017when a strong wind of Föhn, impetuous and discontinuous, did it crash to the ground. And at that point the story has become his.

A History of life and death. But also of rebirth. And that’s the one that Ferrari tells in its pages imbued with pathos and narrative tension. Once fell it could have been nothing more than a piece of wood, a huge piece of wood, but still that. Becoming firewood, cut into touches, sold a lot to the kilo and the thing ended there. But that was the prince, a great gentleman, the white fir par excellence, and the mayor of Lavarone Isaac Corradi and the forest caretaker Damiano Zanocco They knew it well. Other than a piece of wood. But moreover Pinocchio, at the beginning, was also a piece of wood and it was the words of Collodi who gave him and make him immortal. They also thought, the mayor and the forestry, to how to continue to make their wooden piece live. Also because he was the prince, what they have always wanted for go see and embrace, Putting themselves in at least three or four (or five) to be able to belong the entire trunk. In short, it was not the « simple cadastous piece » that Mastro Geppetto turned around his hands while thinking about the puppet who would then come to life.

In the end, even the immortal prince really became it. Thanks precisely to Giovanni Costantini, musician and conductor, who proposed to obtain from that folded trunk, found in an inanime ground like a beached whale, of the musical instruments. Because they are the wooden artifacts of greater longevity, nothing equals them. Even today in the orchestras they play violins passed through the hands of Antonio Stradivari in the second half of the 1600s. With the prince’s wood, two violins and one viola were made in addition to the cello. They were left whiteto underline its origin and also the exceptional nature, because usually the tools are made with red fir. And they play, they play all right. They became a quartet, the quartet Souland they travel the world Bringing music, a living thing. This is how even the prince continues to live and who knows how much he can still do it.

It is a story of rebirth, that of the Avez of Longarone. And it is therefore a story of hope. But it is also a sad story, because that giant felling is the sign of the fragility of nature in front of climate changewhich is also constantly denied. Because that of Pinocchio is a fairy tale, and in fairy tales you know everything is worth. But this is a true story and the refined words of Marco Albino Ferrari do not transform it into a fairy tale, even if they make it vibrate, like the cello courts: «You sighted it to kilometers, because that unmistakable polycromic hair, composed of distinct seven points, stood on the green sea that surrounded her. As if it had been a tree stuck above the expanse of the other trees ». “He dizzy. Like a precipice on the contrary. The highest tree in Europe. Mont Blanc of the trees ».

Seven years have passed between the 2017 crash and the creation of arched tools. The right seasoning of the wood had to be awaited. In that interval the mountain has heard the wind other times blow and other trees crash to the ground. The year following the fall of the great fir, when the Storm Vaia He hit the peaks by massacring plants. And he saw others still of trees slowly die, because of the Bostrica small insect that slips under the bark of the cut trees but also of healthy ones and ends up undermining the health of the plants that inexorably die. And in the end of victims he made him more, a little guy and terrible, that the powerful Vaia. Millions of trees have simply stopped existing in the last ten years.

The prince’s wood, entrusted to the hands of the master luthier Trentino Gianmaria Stelzerwho today lives in Zurich, yes it is instead transformed and has come to life. Four arc tools destined to last hundreds of years, playing music that has even more years. « There is a before and after in this story – writes Ferrari -. There are centuries to tell and moments to stop. Above all, you have to find the words to tell the silence. And then there is a perspective that cuts the future through the holes of the F of a violin, bringing a new light. No longer filtered by the branches of the trees, but interspersed with an arc that dance on the ropes ».