Dolce Spirto d'amore by Gesualdo
The madrigal is famous for exploring and elaborating upon the experience of unrequited love. At a wild guess, I'd say that 40-50% of all madrigals at least touch upon this topic. Sometimes it's just a fading memory, superseded by a finally-achieved union. But usually it is central and doesn't end well.
Well, today we have a madrigal which runs counter to this trend, and indeed has a happy beginning, middle and end. It's by Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (1566-1613), better-known for his dark, troubled madrigals on the topic alluded to above. Here's a famous example.
But today's madrigal, 'Dolce spirto d'amore' is different. The poem is by the Ferrarese poet Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612), one of the go-to poets for the madrigalian set in the late 16th- and early 17th-centuries. Here's a translation:
Sweet spirit of love, captured in a sigh.
While I gaze upon her fair face, it breathes life into my heart.
Thus my heart takes courage from that lovely mouth,
Which, sighing, it touches.
Nothing tortured here, just a calm scene of love given and love returned. And dang, does Gesualdo ever bring it to life! It's a great example of the central goal of the madrigal: To bring about a perfect union of words and music, to capture a thought in tones, to illustrate and even to heighten a lyrical thought with a perfect little sound-world, custom-made for its purpose.
The languid, seemingly post-coital mood of this madrigal always puts me in mind of a poem called
'After Love', by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014):
Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, are mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Lips admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
The wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self,
Lay lightly down, and slept.
The madrigal is famous for exploring and elaborating upon the experience of unrequited love. At a wild guess, I'd say that 40-50% of all madrigals at least touch upon this topic. Sometimes it's just a fading memory, superseded by a finally-achieved union. But usually it is central and doesn't end well.
Well, today we have a madrigal which runs counter to this trend, and indeed has a happy beginning, middle and end. It's by Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (1566-1613), better-known for his dark, troubled madrigals on the topic alluded to above. Here's a famous example.
But today's madrigal, 'Dolce spirto d'amore' is different. The poem is by the Ferrarese poet Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612), one of the go-to poets for the madrigalian set in the late 16th- and early 17th-centuries. Here's a translation:
Sweet spirit of love, captured in a sigh.
While I gaze upon her fair face, it breathes life into my heart.
Thus my heart takes courage from that lovely mouth,
Which, sighing, it touches.
Nothing tortured here, just a calm scene of love given and love returned. And dang, does Gesualdo ever bring it to life! It's a great example of the central goal of the madrigal: To bring about a perfect union of words and music, to capture a thought in tones, to illustrate and even to heighten a lyrical thought with a perfect little sound-world, custom-made for its purpose.
The languid, seemingly post-coital mood of this madrigal always puts me in mind of a poem called
'After Love', by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014):
Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, are mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Lips admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
The wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self,
Lay lightly down, and slept.