Salò 18th Century Music Festival: Celebrating Masters of Classical Music

Quartetto del Lago performing at the Church of the Visitation in Salo — The Quartetto del Lago performing at the Church of the Visitation during the 18th-Century Salò Master Musicians Festival.

Salò and Music: The 18th-Century Salò Master Musicians Festival

In my previous article, I spoke about Salò and Music, presenting a brief narrative on the history of the Salò Summer Music Festival (Estate Musicale salodiana).

With this current piece, I intend to report on another event: the 18th-Century Salò Master Musicians Festival (Rassegna dei grandi musicisti salodiani del ‘700), which has now reached its fifth edition.

As I will recount, it featured a performance by the Quartetto del Lago in the Church of the Visitation (Chiesa della Visitazione) on the evening of July 14, 2026. This will be followed by two additional events in September and October to conclude the series.

In a press conference held on March 31, 2022, in the Sala dei Provveditori, I presented the inaugural edition of this festival.

Dedicated to the great 18th-century composers of Salò, it sought to showcase significant works by these figures, who perhaps have not always received adequate recognition in the city that gave them birth.

It was structured over three evenings—July 15, August 19, and September 2—with the first two hosted in the Cloister of the Mu.Sa Museum to highlight that evocative setting, and the third held in the Sala dei Provveditori.

The festival was brought to fruition by Salò musician Federico Franchini, a talented instrumentalist who with his Quartetto del Lago has achieved national renown. He masterfully plays the double bass. As I mentioned previously, Franchini was commissioned for years to periodically access the rare 16th-century ‘Biondo’ double bass—crafted by Gasparo da Salò and housed in the lutherie section of the Mu.Sa Museum—to play it so as to maintain its efficiency and ensure it never lost its extraordinary acoustic resonance.

The project of the first edition was carried forward and expanded through research that enabled the Quartetto to acquire sonatas attributed to these important Salò musicians.

They are: Buono Chiodi, Ferdinando Bertoni, and Gianbattista Quaglia.

The first achieved great renown as Maestro di Cappella at the Sanctuary of Santiago de Compostela in Spain where, to this day, a concert featuring his music is performed every year in the cathedral.

The first concert of the inaugural edition marked the very first time that music by Chiodi was performed in Salò.

Bertoni, upon reaching Venice, acquired a fame that crossed the boundaries of the Venetian Republic, seeing his compositions performed across various parts of Europe before becoming Maestro di Cappella at St. Mark’s Basilica. He even had a historic meeting with the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The fame of Quaglia likewise transcended the borders of the Venetian Republic, with his compositions performed in Europe as well.

The concert of July 14, titled ‘La Musica della Magnifica Patria’—the first performance of the 5th edition—was hosted in the Church of the Visitation and was dedicated to celebrating the memory of the great Lake Garda cellist Luigi Bossoni, who recently passed away.

Before an attentive audience, the Quartetto del Lago presented pieces by Benedetto Marcello, Antonio Vivaldi, Ferdinando Bertoni, and Mozart.

Federico’s reputation as a music historian led him to edit an interesting volume, ‘La musica a Salò’, which in 2018, on the initiative of the Civic Library, was presented to the public at the library’s former premises in via Fantoni, featuring a report by Lamberto Dondio, President of the Friends of Music, alongside a live performance by the Quartetto del Lago.

This event, I wish to emphasize, acquires special significance not only because for the first time in Salò due prominence is given to our composers who attained European renown in the 1700s, but above all because it rescued Buono Chiodi from oblivion. The festival responded positively to the appeal that Galician musicologist Maria Pilar Alén sent to Salò during her visit to our city in the 1980s. She authored a paper published in the Ateneo Memoirs (1988–1990) highlighting the paradox of how the memory of this talented Salò composer had fallen into obscurity, asserting that Buono Chiodi transformed the Santiago Chapel into a center of musical excellence in Spain.

The performers of the festival evenings featured, as on July 14, the Quartetto del Lago, which I have previously written about in GN. The string quartet (consisting of two violins, a cello, and a double bass) is composed of professional musicians from Brescia and Verona.

Founded in 2012 in Salò, it is directed by M° Federico Franchini, a Salò citizen who is a double bassist and music historian.

The quartet boasts an active record of institutional concerts, collaborations with soloists, choirs, and opera singers, religious and civil ceremonies, as well as private events.

It has performed in various squares across the Lake Garda area, but has also expanded beyond it, performing in the Veronese region and in Brescia. On multiple occasions, it has been invited for concerts that contributed to introducing the music of our aforementioned Salò composers.

For several years, its members have also been part of the Musical Chapel of San Filippo Neri at the Filippini in Verona, directed by Federico Franchini.

Continuing our acquaintance with this young ensemble—made of young musicians who have already earned sufficient fame to be counted among the prides of Salò, city of music—I recall a few significant performances.

In 2013, the Quartet participated as a guest performer at the 55th edition of the Garda Summer Music Festival to pay tribute to the 140th anniversary of the municipal theater.

In the following year, the ensemble performed with Maestro Gerardo Chimini with music dedicated to Ferdinando Bertoni.

To conclude this commemoration of the 18th-Century Salò Master Musicians Festival, I offer a brief descriptive note on the Church of the Visitation, which hosted this year’s first event.

Church of the Visitation in Salo — The historic 1712 Church of the Visitation on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in Salò.

The church was erected on present-day Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II by the Visitandine nuns after they constructed a monastery in 1712. In November 1715, the Bishop of Brescia consecrated the church, opening it to the faithful.

The church was brought to completion in three years and three months, including the choir, separated from the nave by a wall built behind the main altar but communicating through a metal grate from which the nuns participated in religious services. The church was likely built on wooden stilts because the lake, until a century earlier, extended well beyond half of present-day Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, which for this reason was also called Fossa (‘the Ditch’).

In 1725, architect Spazzi designed the facade, which was ultimately realized in 1825 by Romualdo Turrini of Salò. Compared to the original design, four niches were added containing statues carved by Giovanni Fantoni in white Negrar marble depicting St. Augustine, St. Francis de Sales, St. Jane Frances de Chantal, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Gualtiero Comini