Rosenfinger
Virtual Concert Hall - Insider Programme 1
Vasta
per aequora vecti: Sea and Wind from Classical Literature to Piano Music
Fabio Grasso, piano
"Vasta per aequora vecti", “transported
through the wide sea”, is a verse drawn from the Aeneis.
This programme collects works that recall in various
way the light, the sounds, the mythology of the sea landscapes described in the
classical epic literature and in the subsequent literary works that refer to
this model. Part of this programme was performed in Vercelli (Sala Dugentesca
“J. Robbone”), during a meeting of the Association of Classical Culture, April
2007.
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Fabio
Grasso: Due liriche di Mimnermo |
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Letizia
Michielon: from Vox tibi, nn. 2-3, Echo, Oceanidi |
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Claude Debussy: Prélude n. 8 Vol II …Ondine |
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Claude Debussy:
Prélude n. 2 Vol I …Voiles |
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Claude
Debussy: Prélude n. 5 Vol I …Les collines d’Anacapri |
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Claude Debussy: L'isle
joyeuse |
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Claude Debussy: Prélude
n. 7 Vol I …Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest |
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Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata
op. 31 n. 2 “Der Sturm” |
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FABIO GRASSO: Due Liriche di Mimnermo, for soprano and
piano
Fabio Grasso, piano.
Guest artist: Lucia Lazzeri, soprano
The meditation of the Greek poet Mimnermus (7th
century b.Chr.) about time flowing and transience of the existence is very
famous mainly for the metaphor of the leaves, image of the human life: just
this text is used in the second of these Due Liriche for soprano and piano.
The first one is based on another important poem, in
which the repetitiveness of the day-night alternation is represented by the
solar chariot's perennially equal motion; so the author imagines for the Sun a
secret night journey on the Ocean's surface, before the rise of the Homeric
"Rose-fingered Aurora", from which our website draws its name.
The structure of the first piece follows the
asymmetrical palindrome route of the poem, assigning a fairly recognizable
harmonic connotation to every section defined by a main textual element: Helios
(vv. 1-3 and 11), Eos (vv. 3-4 and 10), the Sun's journey (central verses).
The second piece is divided into two main sections; in
its turn the first one has two subsections (vv. 1-2, vv. 3-5), while the second
part consists of three segments with quite different characters: widespread
octaves from the "black Parcae" to "Death", lumps of close
sounds until verse 9, and an anaphoric melodi proceeding for the last verse.
LISTEN
- n. 1: 0'00'' to 3'32'' - n. 2: 3'32''
TEXTS: Original Classical Greek (used for the
composition) and English translation
n. 1
Mimnermus, 7th century. b.Chr, fragm. 10 D.
n. 2
Mimnermus, 7th century. b.Chr, fragm. 2 D.
LETIZIA MICHIELON:
from Vox Tibi, n. 2, ECHO, n. 3, OCEANDIDI
CLAUDE DEBUSSY: Prélude n. 8 Vol II ...Ondine
Fabio Grasso, piano
The daughters of Ocean inspire one of the pieces of
the cycle Vox tibi (2007) of Letizia Michielon, an hommage to some
women of Greek mythology, related to the natural elements.
A Debussyan atmosphere permeates these works, not
casually, since Debussy also loved these sea figures, as testified for example
by the Prelude Ondine.
We find one of the most beautiful literary evocations
of them in Aeschylos’ Prometheus bound:
LISTEN to Letizia Michielon's Vox tibi, movements 2-3, 3'31''
LISTEN to Claude Debussy's Ondine, 4'09''
CLAUDE DEBUSSY: Prélude n. 2 Vol
I ...Voiles
CLAUDE
DEBUSSY: Prélude n. 5 Vol I ...Les collines d'Anacapri
CLAUDE DEBUSSY: L'isle joyeuse
Fabio Grasso, piano
The second Debussy’s Prelude recall a silent,
impressionistically "veiled" motion of sails on the sea waves (voile has the double meaning of "sail" and "veil"),
while the images of joyful mediterranean isles with their bright colour inspire
both …Les collines d’Anacapri and L’isle joyeuse. This last is said to be
a Greek isle, whether the isle of Cythera, Venus’s birth place, or another like
homeric Calypso’s isle, so described in the fifth book of the Odyssey.
When Hermes came to the far isle, he went to the great cave, in
which lived the nymph with beautiful locks. A great fire burned on the hearth.
Far, citron and thuja smelled a delicate perfume. She, inside, sang with
beautiful voice and wove with the golden spool. A luxuriant wood was all
around, alders, poplars and odorous cypresses. Wide-winged birds had there
their nest … Around the cave a lush vine, full of bunchs. Limpid water was flowing
out from four close sources … surrounded by flowery meadows. Even a god would
have contemplated this place, astonished, and rejoiced in his heart.
LISTEN to Claude Debussy's Voiles, 4'47''
LISTEN to Claude Debussy's Les collines d'Anacapri, 3'26''
LISTEN to Claude Debussy's L'isle joyeuse, 6'13''
CLAUDE DEBUSSY: Prélude n. 7 Vol
I ...Ce qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest
LUDWIG
van BEETHOVEN: Sonata op. 31 n. 2 "Der Sturm"
Fabio
Grasso, piano
The homeric poems and the Greek theatre were surely well
known to Shelley and Shakespeare. We end the programme with two passages that
certainly owe much to the Greek literature, and show the stormy face of the
sea. Shelley’s West Wind has directly inspired Debussy's ...Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest.
The relation between Beethoven’s Sonata op. 31 n. 2 and Shakespeare’s Tempest is weaker – the composer was induced to mention the drama
in order to satisfy persistent requests about possible literary references for
this Sonata. in which the inner stormy tumult deflagrating in the first
movement is only apparently tempered by the resigned atmosphere of the initial
theme (like a resigned motion of sea waves after the passage of a storm) of
.the final Allegretto, that with its thematic developments and strong dynamic
contrasts becomes soon a very unquiet, tormented movement, after the peaceful
contemplativeness of the Adagio.
Thou (West Wind) on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose
clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, shook from the tangled boughs of
Heaven and Ocean,
Angels
of rain and lightning: there are spread on the blue surface of thine aery
surge, like the bright hair uplifted from the head of some fierce Maenad, even
from the dim verge of the horizon to the zenith's height, the locks of the
approaching storm.
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Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: what if my leaves are falling like its
own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies will take from both a deep, autumnal
tone, sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, my spirit! (Pierce B. Shelley, from
the Ode to the West Wind)
“I boarded the king's ship; I
flamed amazement .., and burn in many places … Jove's lightnings, the
precursors o' the dreadful thunder-claps … the fire and cracks Oggetto:f
sulphurous roaring the most mighty
Neptune seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble … his dread trident
shake.“ (William
Shakespeare, from The Tempest)
LISTEN to Debussy's Ce
qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest, 3'47''
LISTEN to Beethoven's Sonata op. 31 n. 2 “Der Sturm”, 25'02''
1. Largo – Allegro, 9'20''
2. Adagio,
8'22''
3.
Allegretto, 7'20''