Libro di fiammelle e ombre.
This multi-component single output consists of a score and a recording (hyperlinked from the PDF). It is a set of 12 short madrigals for six solo voices, premiered by EXAUDI at Wigmore Hall in April 2017 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in May 2017.
- Submitting institution
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Guildhall School of Music & Drama
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- WEEJAMA
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- April
- Year
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- ‘Libro di fiammelle e ombre’ focuses on a crucial moment in musical and literary history: the beginning of the 16th century in Italy, when the influence of the poet and scholar Pietro Bembo led to a new consideration of the affective power of sound and rhythm in Petrarch’s poetry, inspiring many ‘Petrarchistic’ imitators as well as the development of the madrigal. It consists of a book of 12 short madrigals, using texts and some brief musical quotations from Jacques Arcadelt’s ‘Primo Libro de’ Madrigali’ as source material. Arcadelt’s book (1539) was a foundational point for the madrigal genre, although its simple, tuneful style is today overshadowed by the achievements of later madrigalists. In referencing it, the work seeks access both to the archetypal expression of Arcadelt’s lyricists and to a sense of tentative, or emergent, expressive self-discovery that his madrigals could be said to embody; this is achieved by use of relatively simple materials and textures, vocal gestural archetypes (the sigh, the swell, the 'grido') and a mobile, microtonally-inflected modality. Texts are cut up and mined for sonically expressive words, alliteration and assonance, placing their sonic properties under a microscope.
The resulting work aims to revitalise the expressive potential of the madrigal within a contemporary aesthetic context, exploring its theoretical and musical origins as a means to recoup its emotional power. As such it responds to recent cycles by Sciarrino, Finnissy, Gervasoni and Fox, developing ideas of individual and ensemble virtuosity (microtonality, vocal versatility/agility) in new directions with the collaboration of the researcher’s own virtuoso ensemble.
The submitted recording is from a performance of the longer option provided for in the score (Performance Note, p. i) and fades in at the close of Arcadelt’s ‘Il bianco e dolce cigno’. Scores for the Arcadelt madrigals are interpolated.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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