Selve Beate by Heinrich Schütz
Madrigals are often sad. Not the Fa-la-la type of madrigal, which is more of a canzonetta or ditty; but the authentic, deep, emotionally-charged artistic madrigal. Great at the end of a break-up, when you're not ready to move on but rather need to immerse yourself in sadness for a time, either hunched over a bar with your libation of choice or listening to your favorite sad music. (Actually these two activities can be [and often are] indulged in simultaneously.)
[An aside: Alison Krauss, when she played during the opening weekend of the GMC, said that someone had asked, 'Why do you all do so much sad music?' She said that the band had discussed this at some length during their tour, finally concluding that 'we're just sad people.' Here's the song she sang immediately thereafter.]
But not all the great madrigals (nor Alison Krauss songs, for that matter) are like this. Sometimes things do work out well, after all!
Today's madrigal is for one of those blessed moments--I'm sure many of us have had one or two in our lives--when after travails and turmoil, two people meant for each other finally come together. E.M. Forster describes such a moment at the end of 'A Room with a View': 'Then they spoke of other things—the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other’s arms.' Sorrow turns to joy; and then, yes, we want to share the joy with each other, and to sing it out--in the present case to (and with) the very woods and foliage which listened so long and sympathetically to our lamenting.
Here's a translation of today's lyric, by a master of expressing such moments in poetry, Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612):
Blessed woods, if sighing in faint whispers
You lamented to our lamenting:
Now rejoice and loosen your tongues,
As many branches play at the sound
Of these laughing breezes, full of our joy.
Our setting is by the young Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), who in the course of extensive study and apprenticeship in Venice published his first (and only) book of madrigals in the Floating City in 1611. You might think that a young Saxon would not necessarily be adept at handling Italian verse in what was then a very Italian style. You would be wrong. Schütz's book of madrigals is a model of its type, filled with the very best lyric poetry in settings absolutely inspired and idiomatic.
'Selve beate' is a great example. Check out the attached score, side-by side text-translation sheet and recording (which you can also access here), and you'll see and hear what I mean. Every little suggestion in the poem--the whispers, the laments, the rejoicing, the branches and the breezes as they laugh and play--each one of these is reflected in the music, neither dutifully nor mechanically, but ingeniously and almost gleefully: a young composer reveling in his craft and discovering ways to bring a joyous and evocative poem into full musical life.
If you want to sing the piece, I suggest you spend a little time with Cinzia's pronunciation recording, also attached hereto.
Madrigals are often sad. Not the Fa-la-la type of madrigal, which is more of a canzonetta or ditty; but the authentic, deep, emotionally-charged artistic madrigal. Great at the end of a break-up, when you're not ready to move on but rather need to immerse yourself in sadness for a time, either hunched over a bar with your libation of choice or listening to your favorite sad music. (Actually these two activities can be [and often are] indulged in simultaneously.)
[An aside: Alison Krauss, when she played during the opening weekend of the GMC, said that someone had asked, 'Why do you all do so much sad music?' She said that the band had discussed this at some length during their tour, finally concluding that 'we're just sad people.' Here's the song she sang immediately thereafter.]
But not all the great madrigals (nor Alison Krauss songs, for that matter) are like this. Sometimes things do work out well, after all!
Today's madrigal is for one of those blessed moments--I'm sure many of us have had one or two in our lives--when after travails and turmoil, two people meant for each other finally come together. E.M. Forster describes such a moment at the end of 'A Room with a View': 'Then they spoke of other things—the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other’s arms.' Sorrow turns to joy; and then, yes, we want to share the joy with each other, and to sing it out--in the present case to (and with) the very woods and foliage which listened so long and sympathetically to our lamenting.
Here's a translation of today's lyric, by a master of expressing such moments in poetry, Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612):
Blessed woods, if sighing in faint whispers
You lamented to our lamenting:
Now rejoice and loosen your tongues,
As many branches play at the sound
Of these laughing breezes, full of our joy.
Our setting is by the young Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), who in the course of extensive study and apprenticeship in Venice published his first (and only) book of madrigals in the Floating City in 1611. You might think that a young Saxon would not necessarily be adept at handling Italian verse in what was then a very Italian style. You would be wrong. Schütz's book of madrigals is a model of its type, filled with the very best lyric poetry in settings absolutely inspired and idiomatic.
'Selve beate' is a great example. Check out the attached score, side-by side text-translation sheet and recording (which you can also access here), and you'll see and hear what I mean. Every little suggestion in the poem--the whispers, the laments, the rejoicing, the branches and the breezes as they laugh and play--each one of these is reflected in the music, neither dutifully nor mechanically, but ingeniously and almost gleefully: a young composer reveling in his craft and discovering ways to bring a joyous and evocative poem into full musical life.
If you want to sing the piece, I suggest you spend a little time with Cinzia's pronunciation recording, also attached hereto.