ROSENFINGER
MULTIMEDIAL ESSAYS - #2
The
perennial instant, between Keats and Messiaen:
Fabio
Grasso, ...AS
DOTH ETERNITY...
© Fabio Grasso, rosenfinger.com 2018
Jump below to the embedded video
The Ode to a
Grecian urn, written in 1819 by John Keats (1795-1821) can be considered as
a fascinating poetic meditation about the concepts of time and eternity.
In Keats's vision the ancient monument mentioned by the
title, marble "bride of quietness" depicting a pastoral scene,
suspends the time, evokes Arcadian "flowery tales", suggests
"unheard melodies" and above all captures beauty, love and exuberance
of youth in their apex, making immortal this joyful instant, never fading,
never wasted by old age.
The aporetic relation
between the eternal liveliness of these privileged figures and the silent
immobility of the sculpted material is the inspiring source for the chamber
work ...as doth eternity... for Clarinet,
Violin, Cello and Piano (2018), whose title is drawn from a verse of the Ode.
This instrumentation explicitly recalls that of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps, highly imaginative musical representation of
the boundary between time and eternity.
FORMAL STRUCTURE - video timing indicates the length
of the sections
Prologue - 0'10''
The opening of the piece immediately reveals the soloistic character of the Clarinet's part, intended in
this prologue as musical mirror of the poet's voice that evokes and
interrogates the images rescued from the time's action. After this introduction
and the consequent interventions of the Section A, the Clarinet remains silent
until the Coda of the work, which confirms its solo role in polar relation with
the Trio.
Section A - 1'11''
Trio's answer takes shape through a general crescendo,
creating the only true animated interaction between the Clarinet and the other
instruments, in an unitary gesture that aims to synthesize Keats's idea of the
perennial motion crystallized in the
perennial instant. This climax is followd by a sudden
silence, from which the last echo of the Clarinet's solo invocation emerges as
conclusion of the section.
Section B
This macrosection is the
diachronic development of what was synchronically expressed by the Section A: it
seems to be its dilated reflection, living on a dialectic relation that now becomes
manifest inside the Trio, through the polarity Piano - Strings.
B1 -
3'01'' - Phase of time dilatation as "thesis" - Strings
At 3'40'' the melodic fragment E - F sharp, recurring
element in the diachronic phases, makes its first clear apparition.
B2 - 4'02''
Phase of time dilatation as "antithesis" - Piano. The echoed chords (chords
followed by a repetition with lower intensity) quote a well-known figure of Messiaen's Quatuor.
B3 - 4'26''
Phase of time dilatation as "synthesis" of B2 and B1. Violin and
Cello materials of B1 are here transformed into a distended line, doubled at
the distance of one or more octaves, like in an episode of Messiaen's
Quatuor.
B2' - 5'11''
Transfigured recapitulation of B2, with piano elements of B3
B1' -
5'31'' Transfigured recapitulation of B1, with sudden dynamic contrasts
B2'' -
6'09'' Conclusive transfiguration of B2
Section C
C1 -
6'31'' Process of acceleration and proliferation applied to repeated chords,
metamorphosis of the idea of B2
C2 -
6'51'' Phase of temporal suspension, during which Piano and Strings proceed
independently, repeating permuted figurations.
C3 -
7'07'' As a consequence of the break caused by C2, this segment presents a
drastic rarefaction of the events: few violent and isolated fragments blink on
the background of the third pedal resonances.
Epilogue - 7'42'' / Coda 9'28''
The desertification of C3 generates a change of
polarity inside the Trio. The Violin, alluding to the last movement of Messiaen's Quatuor, starts a
long melodic line, more and more ascending, in a more and more despairing
crescendo.
In relation to Keats's poem, this phrase could be
interpreted as an extreme and vain attempt of shrinking from the thought that the
ephemeral human happiness has the only chance to be preserved by a sculpture on
a funeral monument. While this sort of cry is longing for an eternal dimension,
time flow is inexorably beaten by the sequences of fragments of Cello and
Piano, through which the cell E - F sharp shines again, with nihilistic
indifference.
During the Coda, before fading out, the final resigned
commentary of the solo Clarinet is somehow troubled by a strike on the lowest
strings of the Piano, like a shadowing echo from a dark underworld.
Fabio Grasso, november 2018
...AS
DOTH ETERNITY...
Premiered in New York, Tenri
Cultural Institute, by Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, 2018-Oct-26
Benjamin Fingland, clarinet;
Sunghae Anna Lim, violin; Christopher Gross, cello; Blair
McMillen, piano
Thanks to WSCMS and Louis Karchin for the
video