Zefiro Torna by Claudio Monteverdi
I hope you enjoyed the celestial fireworks the last couple of nights! Wow!
Here's a song which includes some fireworks of its own. It's by the divine Claudio Monteverdi: his duet setting of the Rinuccini poem 'Zefiro torna'. (This in contradistinction to his setting of the Petrarch poem of the same title.
We had Marenzio's setting of that text several weeks ago.)
As with the Petrarch, the protagonist of Rinuccini's poem is outdoors on a beautiful day, extolling the virtues of nature and trying to convince himself that everything is just peachy. This long opening section takes place over a lively two-bar ground repeating bass--called a ciaccona--over which the pair of soloists soar together like two lovebirds.
BUT: Finally things grind to a halt, and we learn that all is not well in paradise. In fact, the lover has been abandoned alone in these goddamn woods, sometimes recalling his delight (at which point the ciaccona returns) and sometimes howling his loss and misery to the heavens.
'Zefiro torna' is an unforgettable piece and always a pleasure to hear. But our recording for the piece is something really special. It's by Christina Pluhar's virtuosic group Arpeggiata, featuring the soprano Nuria Rial and the countertenor
Phillippe Jaroussky. Their peerless rendition of the piece is lifted even higher by improvisations on cornetto and violin, along with some great percussion work.
I have attached all the usual materials, but it would be a real challenge to work the piece up. (A few of you will no doubt do this, and you'll never regret it.) Probably most of you will most enjoy listening, with or without the score, and living for a time in the particular sound-world which Monteverdi has created for us. Do follow along with the text-translation, for the composer's attention to the rendering of the words is (as always) exquisite.
I hope you enjoyed the celestial fireworks the last couple of nights! Wow!
Here's a song which includes some fireworks of its own. It's by the divine Claudio Monteverdi: his duet setting of the Rinuccini poem 'Zefiro torna'. (This in contradistinction to his setting of the Petrarch poem of the same title.
We had Marenzio's setting of that text several weeks ago.)
As with the Petrarch, the protagonist of Rinuccini's poem is outdoors on a beautiful day, extolling the virtues of nature and trying to convince himself that everything is just peachy. This long opening section takes place over a lively two-bar ground repeating bass--called a ciaccona--over which the pair of soloists soar together like two lovebirds.
BUT: Finally things grind to a halt, and we learn that all is not well in paradise. In fact, the lover has been abandoned alone in these goddamn woods, sometimes recalling his delight (at which point the ciaccona returns) and sometimes howling his loss and misery to the heavens.
'Zefiro torna' is an unforgettable piece and always a pleasure to hear. But our recording for the piece is something really special. It's by Christina Pluhar's virtuosic group Arpeggiata, featuring the soprano Nuria Rial and the countertenor
Phillippe Jaroussky. Their peerless rendition of the piece is lifted even higher by improvisations on cornetto and violin, along with some great percussion work.
I have attached all the usual materials, but it would be a real challenge to work the piece up. (A few of you will no doubt do this, and you'll never regret it.) Probably most of you will most enjoy listening, with or without the score, and living for a time in the particular sound-world which Monteverdi has created for us. Do follow along with the text-translation, for the composer's attention to the rendering of the words is (as always) exquisite.