Libro di fiammelle e ombre - for six solo voices
- Submitting institution
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University of Durham
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 114698
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
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- 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
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- Criminology
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- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- 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 (6 solo voices, 2017) was premiered by EXAUDI at Wigmore Hall on 01.04.2017 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in May 2017. It received a British Composer Award (Chamber category) in December 2018. 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 twelve 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, Libro di fiammelle e ombre 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. Libro di fiammelle e ombre 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 solo and ensemble virtuosity (microtonality, vocal versatility/agility) in new directions with the collaboration of Weeks’ own virtuoso ensemble EXAUDI.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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