Jacopone da Todi News
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2024-04-26
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Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium
2015-12-20 07:10:38
Explore the Score- Dvorak Stabat Mater
Antonin Dvorak- Stabat Mater, op. 8 Antonin Dvorak Dvorak began and completed his great setting of Jacopone da Todi’s 13th century poem Stabat Mater under a cloud of great personal tragedy. In 1875 his oldest daughter Josefa died only days after her birth. The grieving Dvorak turned to the ancient text of the Stabat Mater, seeing in its evocation of Mary’s grief at the death of her son a portrait of parental love and pain that he related to on a most personal level. He completed an outline of the entire work, but set it aside before finishing its orchestration and the working out of details to work on other pieces. Many scholars believe that the piece’s connection to Josefa made work on it too painful for Dvorak to complete the project at the time. However, tragedy struck again with even greater cruelty only two years later. In […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2015-07-25 23:12:00
Modern Musical Poesy Through Tanglewood Rain
[…] movements for ensemble alone. Dallapiccola (1904-’75, TMC faculty 1951-’52) is a towering figure of strict serialism, whose name you hear more than his music. Robert Kirzinger’s note compares Dallapiccola with Roger Sessions: both men were widely respected in their time and produced much music; both are admired as craftsmen by other musicians; and both wrote music that remains difficult to love. The texts chosen by Dallapiccola were from Laudi (poems of praise) by Jacapone da Todi (1230-1306) which are positively ecstatic in content, especially the second, which uses the word “amor” 18 times in 18 lines, i.e.: “Love, love, Jesus long desired / Love I want to die in your embrace.” Soprano Suzanne Rigden (who also provided the English program translations) has a lithe and athletic voice that easily encompassed Dallapiccolla’s complex vocal lines, executing the stratospheric ascents without undue effort. The musical effect, alas, was tough, overwrought (even hysterical) […]
2015-07-02 02:18:44
[…] last opera William Tell in 1828 which had its premiere on 3 August 1829 and retired from writing operas with only 37 years. Rossini got the commission to compose the Stabat Mater during a trip to Spain in 1831 by Father Manuel Fernandez Varela, general commissioner of the Santa Cruzada. As with Puccini’s Messa di Gloria Rossini used a well know text. The Stabat Mater is a medieval poem by the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi (1230 – 1306) which evokes the sorrows of the Virgin Mary for her crucified son Jesus. Initially Rossini was only able so set part of the poem (no. 1 and no. 5 -9). His ill health prevented him from finishing the work and he asked a friend Giovanni Tadolini to compose the other movements. This Rossini-Tadolini version was performed for the first time in Madrid in 1833. Rossini did not want this version to […]
2014-12-30 09:34:22
[…] Notes My own music took leaps and bounds this year- thanks to being back with a regular learning schedule with my guru and some really complex tangles, where I was getting struck got resolved. A whole sea of ragas entered back with a huge velocity. I learnt this year for the first time- Nat Bhairav, Jogkauns, Lalit (my god, how could i ever live without this) and learnt to have a better view of Bilaskhani Todi, Madhuvanti, Maru Bihag, Kedar, Mian Malhar (again) Gujri Todi, Des, Bairagi (never seem to get over with this), as of course Yaman, Shankara (!!!) and on the last days today and tomorrow- Chandrakauns. Wow! that is a huge lot. I learnt a minimum of two or three bandishes in each of them. In each of these I already had a big lot of compositions from the past. The only three that I almost learnt […]