Madrigal "Moro, lasso,
al mio duolo"
(Book VI, n.17) Il Complesso Barocco (dir. Alan Curtis)
I die! Languishing, of grief,
and the person who can give me life,
alas, kills me and does not want to give me aid.
O, woeful Fate!
That the one who can give me life,
alas, gives me death!
Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613)
The people slept. God wept.
ReplyDeleteI felt awoken in my heart
ReplyDeletea loving spirit that was sleeping;
and then I saw Love coming from far away
so glad, I could just recognize.
saying "you think you can honor me",
and with each word laughing.
And little being with me my lord,
watching the way it came from,
I saw lady Joan and lady Bice
coming towards the spot I was at,
one wonder past another wonder.
And as my mind keeps telling me,
Love said to me "She is Spring who springs first,
and that bears the name Love, who resembles me."
- Dante Alighieri, "La Vita Nuova" (1295)
FJ,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to that LOVELY music! Have you any idea who composed it? From the sound and the advanced orchestration I think it must have been written much later than Dante's text, if that IS Dante's text?
I mentioned Gesualdo a day or two ago on the Stockhausen thread. Gesualdo's music is considered downright bizarre by the standards of his day (late 1500's - early 1600's). He wrote chromatic harmonies that border almost on the atonal. Very advanced for it's time. Many in the music field regard Gesualdo as a brilliant renegade, -- almost a freak or a fluke -- but more of a curiosity than a major figure in the development of the Western musical canon.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't dismiss him like that. He was quite prolific, and extremely interesting to my reasonably well educated ears.
Today's selection is but one of many hundreds of madrigals and some liturgical music he wrote.
That is Dante's text. The music "Vide Cor Meum" ("See my heart") is a song composed by Irish composer Patrick Cassidy circa 2001 based on Dante's "La Vita Nuova", specifically on the sonnet "A ciascun'alma presa", in chapter 3 of the "Vita Nuova".
ReplyDeleteThe words are melancholy, but the music itself is glorious.
ReplyDeleteMuch more up my alley than Stockhausen.
I love the music of the human voice, particularly when the modulations and harmonies are unusual -- and not pure cacophony. I get my fill of the latter with today's TV commercials.
PS: The library setting in the video is an interesting touch. Somehow related to the lyrics? Don Quijote, at the end of the novel, might expound upon the connection between the lyrics and the setting in the video.
ReplyDeleteI think the setting may have more to do with acoustics deemed idea for this sort of chamber music, which is what it was in its time, AOW.
ReplyDeleteIn this period ordinary people got together, believe it or not, to sing madrigals for an evening's entertainment.
In general people of a certain class were far more musically literate than they would be today.
Also, the architecture and general atmosphere of that library evokes the spirit of the Renaissance more than any sterile, functional-modern monstrosity found in too many public spaces and colleges campuses today.
Too bad they didn't go so far as to wear Renaissance-style garb to complete the effect!