The House of Conci

Antonio Conci (1899-1981) and  Silvia Conci de Corradi (1908-1996)

I was soon to find out that I had been lucky also in the choice of Parents-in-law. Silvia Conci, nee de Corradi, was herself a concert pianist, but attuned also to human contact. On that very first visit to S. Vito in 1960 - that of my unwitting error of arriving with an armful of gladioli, to hand over to her against a background of the most glorious specimens growing in the long flower beds leading up to the house - I am told she whispered to Noretta, 'That's the kind of man you should marry.' I carried away much more than I had brought. We were to share much, much more over the years. Silvia delighted in a well-laid table and its pleasures: rare delicacies of game, the rich Trentino cuisine, and above all good wine. Papa Antonio and Ncretta were teetotal and with appreciative but undemanding tastes in food. So Silvia was glad to have a companion after her own heart, and meals were often delectably conspiratorial.

During the early years of our marriage we were able to visit the family at least for summers in S. Vito and winters in Trento, sometimes even at Easter if it could be combined with a business or European mission. Antonio had been one of the first ever to take to those Trentino slopes on skis. There were photos of a Nansen-like figure, completely alone on a virgin blanket of unmarked snow. He and Silvia, Noretta and her young sister Claretta had all grown up on skis and were enviably accomplished. My only winter sports experience - apart from tobogganing - had been on rented skis in 1948 in Celerina, at the foot of the fearsome St Moritz bobsleigh run (fearsome it had proved because, in the process of climbing to the top of the trench wall, one of my skis slid off onto the run, to be retrieved only in the final seconds before a bob came roaring over the spot). I tended to  hesitate too  long before my turns, so had the ungainly experience of being coached by the ladies on how to do this by twisting one's unnaturally extended legs in an athletic pirouette. Eventually I learned the secret and was able to share the exhilaration of gliding around freely like everyone else. These are the experiences that reveal a great deal about the personalities of one's companions - and their growing affection. Few endeavours give one such satisfaction and sense of wellbeing, and appetite for the hearty nourishment of Trentino apres-ski fare.

Antonio was happy to share also his love of hiking in the mountain ranges surrounding the Trento bowl, as well as further afield. We scaled some undemanding heights but also covered many miles in the process. My brother-in-law Antonio, Claretta's husband, had the same passion and has since taken me notably on an excursion up and through the Adamello Glacier, an awe-inspiring experience. Claretta, like her mother, loves the historic sites particularly of the Val di Non, and I owe much to their tireless energy in taking us to their discoveries, or to the people that lived in them. My musical education, too, could not fail to prosper with Silvia and Noretta's attachment to Bolzano and the international piano competition named after its star citizen Ferruccio Busoni. How many anxious summer days and nights did we pass in our red velvet seats in the Conservatory's concert hall, following the ascent of students, friends or, more latterly, those young people we were selecting for the Keyboard Trust. Each of the Concis, in their own way, introduced me to a new world - and a new dimension of affection and camaraderie.

As a practicing lawyer and public notary of more than half a century, Papa seemed to know every living soul in Trento and its outlying valleys, including the Val di Non. He had grown up with them, seen their children born, drawn up their wills, soothed marital and neighbourly disputes and enjoyed their trust into crotchety old age. Silvia had soon discovered that his scale of fees was fixed less in line with services rendered than with his client's ability to pay. His own testament was littered with insignificant pieces of land he had been offered in payment of some account rendered. Noretta was eventually to benefit from three uncontiguous 'handkerchiefs' in a delightful location outside Trento which proved stubbornly unsaleable because of building and other restrictions; the only person benefiting from them was a neighbouring farmer who had been given the right to harvest the hay - until, that was, the growing urban taste for fresh berries made the miniscule pieces of soil attractive to mini­ growers.

Another legacy was this gentle man's love of similarly peaceable cows of a most pleasing Swiss breed, which he installed in a suitably well-appointed milking parlour in S. Vito. He was not the Surrey stockbroker playing at farming. Rather he believed that it was the duty of someone enjoying a country life to take responsibility for its survival in all its forms. So the animals enjoyed warm quarters in winter, and a communal summer camp further up the mountain. When in residence, they were looked after by a couple who admirably shared the domestic and outdoor duties of the establishment. Until one day, after Antonio's demise, they had personal problems and decided to quit. From one day to the next, Noretta found herself with a byrn of six beautiful beasts, bleating in their agony because no one had drawn their milk. The story had spread far and wide, and avid buyers soon arrived at the gate, Noretta presiding over a distress auction. One man from a little further away looked at her closely and said in disbelief, 'But aren't you the pianist? Why are you selling cows?'

As they grew older, both Silvia and Antonio began a gentle decline, heralded for him by a dramatic heart attack which kept him in hospital for several weeks. I was away on CDC business in Central Africa at the time and returned in the grip of an unidentified intestinal infection. Almost immediately I found myself on the same floor of the same hospital. Although it was soon established that the cause of the problem was no longer live, those were the days when Italian hospitals were staffed by nuns, and those kindly ones that took charge of me decided that I needed building up before I could be released. Thus, in the breaks between a solid diet of restorative potatoes, I was free to roam around and pay visits to Papa, which he soon began to return by directing his wheelchair to my ward. We spent memorable hours conversing, led by his unsophisticated view of the world, its growing over-population, leading to the simple conclusion that it was probably time for him to surrender a place to some newly born who would have need of it.

When finally his time came, it was not difficult to console him. But he did yearn for reassurance, which with God's help I seemed able to give him, stilling his doubts about the process of dying, the distancing from his loved ones, and the inevitable final questioning of all his beliefs. Reassured, he relaxed into his pillows, without physical pain or other anguish, focusing on the new vistas that were opening up for him, rising from the mists, as in his mountaineering days.

Anticipating this day, a year earlier we had bought the lease of 'Number Three', the cottage opposite ours, as a kind of dower house for Silvia to spend longer periods with us yet retain her independence. It had become a home for itinerant musicians, from the Accardos to Ruggiero Raimondi, from Piero Faggioni to the 19-year old Evgeny Kissin who spent his first ever visit to the West there with Mother Emma and lifelong Teacher Anna Pavlovna. For Silvia, intensely independent and in her later years more solitary, it proved a welcome safety net. Perhaps even too much so, as after three weeks she would regularly fly this nest, announcing that she was becoming so attached to it that she felt guilty to stay and enjoy it longer. Perhaps the truth was that she was repeatedly overwhelmed by the very attributes that captivated her: the intense musical life and its pace, the stream of multicoloured visitors, in good part attracted by her presence, and the ever-changing daily agenda.

After a few all too brief years the matter was settled by a seriously debilitating stroke. Although it kept her from then on in a wheelchair, her mind remained clear. Even if communication proved halting, there was no doubt that the London weeks over the years had given her a store of memories to cherish and engage her attention. Thus she remained good humoured to the end, avoiding the querulous old age that ruins so many close families, and eventually passing up her remarkably discriminating spirit in perfect harmony in our midst. She went as she was known to so many around her, a great lady of diminutive stature, restlessly working for others, an artist of impeccable taste and judgment, a being of great humanity which affected and benefited everyone who came into her orbit. Each one of us still carries that little stigma we owe to her.

It is a great tribute to both parents that their successors, Claretta and the second Antonio, are continuing their traditions with the elegance of their household as well as their affection for S. Vito. It was Papa Antonio who, already as a young man, bought out other relatives and assumed their debts in order to consolidate that property, and the younger couple have justified his courage in bringing it into single ownership. Under their stewardship, the house has been enlarged, mainly at the agricultural level, where a completely new roof structure protects a machinery park adjacent to new bathrooms for guest and children's rooms. But the most laudable improvement are the new plantings in the orchard which have expanded it to some 20,000 apple trees. It now is a completely modern intensive production unit, run on simple and cost-effective lines. Gone are the days when itinerant merchants came offering risible prices for a crop that could not be preserved and needed a buyer with despatch. They have been replaced by growers' co-operatives with substantial investments in cold stores allowing stocks to be released throughout the year.

Claretta and Antonio have seen their daughter Paola take an intensive farm management course and inducted her into the practical methods of husbandry, but above all giving her a taste for country life which should stand her and her family in good stead. Like all intelligent children, their Davide and Lucia are able to make the most of the environment in which they find themselves, be it S. Vito's active country life, the cultural vistas of Bologna, or the stately residence in Trento. They appear well equipped for whatever the rest of the 2ist century may have in store for them.

In this age of grace it is given to few not only to know their roots but to stay attached to them; to even fewer to be able with moderate certainty to provide the same security to their children. Noretta and I count ourselves fortunate to be able to share in that legacy as privileged guests of an affectionate and close-knit family, even as its lines are lustily extending into the future.

The marriage of Chiara Maria Conci to Antonio Parenti in the Chapel of San Vito

Al Fresco Uncovered
in the Chapel of San Vito