Giovanni Perluigi de Palestrina (1595-1594) - Missa Papae Marcelli
I love this balance of modal and tonal. With out modern ears this music feels free from the constrictions of later tonal harmony while feeling a stronger tonal center and and a more familiar harmonic progression. The cadences are now dominant, and in triads, this is getting closer to that traditional harmony we all know and love.
Contemporary composers are coming back to this exact sensibility, making music sounds pretty and familiar while freeing themselves from strict tonal harmony.
There is a strong emphasis on words and the vocal parts are crafted around the words. There is play with harmonic progression and development of counterpoint in great balance between the voices.
It is possible the words are audible in reaction to the church's objection that liturgical music was losing the words and isn't focusing on devotion. I think that's a good point there.
Carlo Gesualdo de Venosa (1560-1613) - "Il parto e non piu dissi"
(why is Gesualdo known by his last name and not by "Venosa"?)
There is a coloration of the text. The mood of the text changes often dramatically based on the words sung.
I love Gesualdo, probably because of that modal/tonal/chromatic balance. He jumps around to chords that we are not used to hearing together, and yet make it all work. My goal! The first time I heard Gesualdo I contemplated quitting composing... I regained my composure and figured I have some other elements in my sleeve and not all is lost, but his music had quite an effect on me.
There is a darkness, moodiness, emotion and expressivity about his writing, perhaps that is why he evokes emotion in me as a listener. This is the first time I'm getting an emotional response since the beginning of our history timeline.
I'm sure part of that darkness came from his life story that sounds straight out of Hollywood:
A young Italian nobleman marries his cousin, she begins a long affair that is known to everyone but him. He tricks her into thinking he has left, catches her and her lover in action and kills them both. He displays their mutilated bodies in front of the palace and is immune to persecution since he is a nobleman.
He remarries, is abusive, depressed, asks servants to beat him daily, loses his children and dies in isolation.
fun.
I love this one. It's dark, chromatic, and beautiful.
Giovanni Gabrielli (1554-1612) - Canzon Septimi Toni a 8
How exciting, instrumental music! Although instrumental music isn't new and instruments were used to double or replace vocalists, it is the first time that we see formal written music for instruments only.
The properties of the music sound like "typical renaissance". The meter is steady, virtuosic soloists, music that is getting to sound very similar to baroque but still modal. This music is fun and enjoyable, and the purpose here is to entertain while still keeping a high sophistication or counterpoint, voice leading and harmony.
As always, this is great commentary. To answer your question, I think we refer to him as "Gesualdo" because "Da Venosa" is just a place name, whereas "Gesualdo" is the family name. I particularly liked the way you connected the clarity of Palestrina's text-setting with the counter-reformation context that helped motivate that text-setting. Can you make similar music-culture connections with the other pieces?
ReplyDeleteThe reason I was wondering about Gesualdo's name is because we address "Palestrina" by his town and not by "Perluigi"...
DeleteGesualdo's story is fascinating. There's a great Alex Ross article from the New Yorker where he hypothesizes about the connection between Gesualdo's dark life and Gesualdo's dark art:
ReplyDelete"The lingering question is whether it is the life or the work that perpetuates the phenomenon. If Gesualdo had not committed such shocking acts, we might not pay such close attention to his music. But if he had not written such shocking music we would not care so much about his deeds. Many bloodier crimes have been forgotten; it’s the nexus of high art and foul play that catches our fancy. As with Gesualdo’s contemporary Caravaggio, who killed a man by stabbing him near the groin, we wonder whether the violence of the art and the violence of the man emanated from the same demoniac source."