by prof. Trident Cosmo.
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The directory of funeral marches Molfettese there is a tradition of running fairly well known that bears the title "Tragic Sunset." The march, often performed in sections of the processions of the passion and Friday of Holy Week, was composed by Maestro Angelo English (1918-1990) in 1945, when a road disaster struck the complex band "City of Molfetta," directed by him, traveling to Manfredonia for the festivities in honor of Our Lady of Mount Caramel (not returned from Manfredonia, as has been wrongly written).
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. The dynamics of the incident can be summarized as follows. It was July 14, 1945, Saturday: the war was over recently and after five years of warfare, they tried to return to a normal life. The musicians of the band had arranged to meet at 16.00 at their headquarters in Via Ricasoli to be taken, with their musical instruments, two trucks provided by the command British occupation of the organizers of the festival of Manfredonia. The band had to perform in the evening in the square outside the church of the Carmine in Corso Manfredi, with the performance of three popular songs lyric: William Tell, La Forza del Destino, and La Traviata . Of the two trucks, one was equipped with dual rear wheels, the other was normal. On both had taken place fifty musicians with their instruments. The two trucks departed from Molfetta to 17.00 hours at a time of Manfredonia.
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. Mr. Raffaele Fiorentini, then part of that band (trumpet player in me flat), now eighty years old, so reminiscent of the dramatic moments of the tragedy: "At sunset, at a distance of about three kilometers from Manfredonia, who were sitting on a normal truck, felt a failure of the right rear wheel. All of a sudden the vehicle is tilted dangerously to the right side and overturned in an agricultural field adjacent. The cry of the musicians was unanimous in this sudden tragedy. Death snatched the lives of three musicians: Mauro Altizio (clarinet-quart) of 11 years, Giuseppe Breglia (clarinet), aged 40, Sebastian Rotondella (flute) of 36 years.
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. There were also many wounded who were brought, by means of luck to the nearest hospital, while other members reported a strong traumatic shock. The driver with the English teacher, seated beside him in the cockpit, remained unscathed.
I sat beside my father, Nicola Fiorentini, timpanist, I was on that truck. I was fourteen. I came out unscathed, like few others and I tried my father's blood. All around was like a battlefield. They all looked dead. In a short time help arrives. A crane lifted the truck overturned on the three victims but there was nothing to do. Dead were crushed by the weight of the engine that had tilted in the gutter. Obviously the party does not did more; Manfredonia is cloaked in mourning. The band broke up and continued his concert the following year, he wanted to return to play more in Manfredonia in memory of colleagues killed in the tragedy. Each component in the arm he wore a black band in mourning. "
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. The funerals of three victims was held the following Monday (July 16) in the Cathedral, the Bishop Mgr. Achille Salvucci, who ended his homily with these words: "We all shake familiar to you in this terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, those who disappeared suddenly leaves us shocked and prostrated in pain. Courage, my dear, hope that the souls of these three unfortunate fellow citizens are in the arms of God give you comfort in this sorrowful moment. Our heart is with you ". At the funeral there was a huge crowd who wanted to pay their last respects to the three bands.
know who they were and what they did in life is not easy. Sebastian Rotondella atria had two brothers who played in that band: Corrado (pistonino) that remained unharmed and Joseph (saxophone) reported that a broken arm. Mauro Altizio was accompanied by his father, Pasquale, he too musician (trombone) in the band.
Breglia Joseph was a man haunted by adversity fate, as he tells us a niece, Mrs. Angela Ortiz, a resident of Bari Molfetta (see "Molfetta Nostra" in October-November 2002): "Breglia Joseph was orphaned of his parents very soon. At 24 he married a beautiful and talented girl who unfortunately died with pneumonia at the age of 22, after two years of marriage, leaving a child of only eight months. After ten years of widowhood she married my uncle, but after two years, the second wife died of tuberculosis, leaving him a son. After a few years, remarried for the third time, but this time was to leave him on that tragic July 14, 1945. Another girl who was left with his third wife, who was carrying another creature destined to never know his father. He was a good carpenter, loved the music, played the first clarinet in the band. He worked in a laboratory cabinet master Corrado Nappi. That laboratory is a small wing of what was once the palace chapel, situated in a cul-de-sac on the right of the great hall of the palace. On the ground floor of that building, the sculptor Giulio Cozzoli works and sculpts his masterpieces. Many times the artist went to the cabinet-making workshop, which was a few steps from his office, to choose among some young workers who could be his model in his sculptures. My uncle would often say: "That soldier of the War Memorial's me," "Jesus Died in the lap of the Madonna I am. " I was young and did not understand. I realized long after you see the sadness of the soldier in the War Memorial, the pain carved on the face of the Virgin holding in her lap the dead body of Christ, always accompanied him in his short and intense life. "
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. The funeral march "Tragic Sunset" was performed for the first time in the processions of Holy Week of 1946. An examination of the poem funeral booklets marked in the arch of Death with the number 6, points out that the first two measures reflected a sharp realism, simulation of motion of the vehicle carrying the band, and carried out the task entrusted by flugelhorn and bass first then low, reinforced by an ostinato chromatic instruments entrusted to the (small in A flat, small in E-flat, etc..) emphasize that the complex idea of \u200b\u200bthe tragedy. The composition evolves with the trio in A flat major, exciting and original, and the ending, which is taken in the opening theme that is enhanced by a tragic "fortissimo".
How to conclude this article? Tragedies like this should not be forgotten and teach us to be ready and prepared for everything, even death, with heart and securely faith.
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* Text and photos by the prof. Trident Cosmo.
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