“Making Music in the Name of the Nation”: at Caffè San Marco, a journey through irredentism and musical identity in Trento and Trieste

A wide-ranging and thought-provoking reflection on the relationship between music, national identity and irredentism between the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century took centre stage at the event organised by the “Manlio Cecovini Study Society”, hosted at the historic Antico Caffè San Marco in Trieste. The conference featured musicologist, musician and librarian lecturer at the “F.A. Bonporti” Conservatoire of Trento, Massimo Favento, introduced by the Association’s Scientific Director Luca G. Manenti.

At the heart of the meeting, entitled “Trento and Trieste at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. Making Music in the Name of the Nation: The Case of Filippo Manara and Vincenzo Gianferrari, ‘Regnicoli’ of the Bolognese School”, was the role played by musical culture in fostering pro-Italian sentiment within the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Favento retraced the stories of two figures who remain far less well known than they deserve to be: Filippo Manara and Vincenzo Gianferrari, both trained within the Bolognese musical tradition of the second half of the nineteenth century and united by a strong connection to irredentism.

During the conference, Favento highlighted how Bologna represented not only one of the leading Italian musical centres of the period, but also one of the environments in which sensitivity towards national aspirations and the idea of an “unfinished Italy” after 1870 took shape. Many young Italian musicians saw the regions of the Habsburg Empire – Trieste, Dalmatia and Trentino – as places offering professional opportunities where an Italian cultural presence could be cultivated and strengthened through teaching, concert activity and the creation of musical institutions.

In this regard, the career of Filippo Manara proved particularly emblematic. After experiences in Dalmatia and Istria, he arrived in Trieste, where he founded the Tartini Conservatoire in 1903. Favento explained how the establishment of the institution was closely tied to the political climate of the city at the beginning of the twentieth century, marked by rapid demographic growth and profound social change. The Conservatoire functioned both as a centre of education and as a tool for consolidating Italian identity. Even the choice of the name “Tartini” reflected a precise symbolic intention: to evoke a figure regarded as an expression of the great Italian and European musical tradition.

Favento also reconstructed the difficult process that led to the opening of the Tartini Conservatoire, which was hindered by the Austro-Hungarian authorities precisely because of the Italian citizenship of its founder and part of the teaching staff. The school eventually opened thanks in part to the support of figures linked to irredentist circles, including lawyers Felice Venezian and Felice Bennati.

Alongside the Trieste experience, the conference also explored the case of Vincenzo Gianferrari and the Trentino context: less cosmopolitan, shaped by fears of Germanisation and by the determination of the local Italian bourgeoisie – in this respect very similar to that of the Adriatic port city – to preserve and reaffirm its own cultural identity. Gianferrari played a central role in the reorganisation of Trentino’s musical education system and in the foundation of the Trento Conservatoire in 1905.

According to Favento, particularly significant was Gianferrari’s decision to combine Italian musical culture with the great German symphonic tradition, introducing innovative experiences into the Trentino context alongside an artistic production deeply influenced by Italian poetry and civic culture. His compositions inspired by Carducci, Pascoli and the themes of the Risorgimento were interpreted as part of a broader cultural project of national emancipation.

One of the most stimulating aspects of the event concerned the very nature of irredentism. Favento invited the audience to reflect on the difficulty of interpreting that movement through contemporary political categories, stressing how early irredentism possessed revolutionary and progressive characteristics and was deeply linked to Mazzinian thought. This interpretation was later taken up and expanded upon during the final debate, in which members of the audience emphasised the secular, popular and culturally open character of that political and intellectual season, distinct from the nationalism that emerged later in the twentieth century.

The discussion then broadened to include the role of cultural networks linking Bologna, Trento and Trieste, the relationship between musical education and society, and the function of music as a means of cultural formation and collective participation. Trieste emerged as a genuine cultural beacon for the entire Adriatic littoral, capable of attracting students, musicians and intellectuals from many parts of the Empire.

The event ultimately became a broader reflection on the relationship between politics and national identity in Mitteleuropa at the dawn of the twentieth century, showing how the musical history of Trento and Trieste became deeply intertwined with the major cultural and civic movements of the era.

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