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Lux In Tenebris: La Commedia di Dante - Cantica III: Canto XXXIII (Dante Beholds the Universe)
SM-000161982
| Komponist | Ennio Paola |
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| Verleger | Significant Music |
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| Genre |
Klassische Musik
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| Instrumentierung |
Klavier |
| Partitur für | Solo |
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| Art der Partitur | Für einen Interpreten |
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| Länge |
2'0" |
| Schwierigkeitsgrad |
Fortgeschritten |
| Jahr der Komposition |
1974 |
| Beschreibung |
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The principal musical theme of Paola’s second piece, Cantica III, meanwhile, is introduced immediately and is designed to portray the extraordinariness of the music of Paradise (Figure 2.11). It is set in a beautiful and lyrical ‘cantabile’ style. As the melody increases in speed, it increases in intensity only to slow down, as if in a state of reflection, before returning to an ‘a tempo’ on three occasions which allude to the Christian Holy Trinity. This meter is in a 12/8 time signature in order to provide a larger sound canvas and to maximise the musical depiction of the heavens.
The two piano pieces are linked by an overall tonal relationship. Throughout the first piece, Paola anticipates this connection by using ‘mirrored’ seconds, rhythms and dynamics to create tension between good and evil, being lost and being found, and the physical and emotional states of ascending and descending. Thus, while the listener is experiencing Dante’s terror at being in the dark wood, he is also hearing a musical hint of the more pleasant experience that is to come, when Dante experiences the vision of God.
The two pieces are also tied together through the note A. Canto I ends with the note A in octaves (m. 55-59). This, however, is left inconclusive by the final tone-cluster in the next measure, which is played by both arms and pedaled to fade to act as ‘ghost notes’. These ghost notes are intended to suggest that an entire sequel of cantos is to follow. In Cantica III, measure 29 ends in the key of A major, thus creating a ‘Plagal Cadence’ IV-I between the unresolved ghost notes at the end of Canto I. There is a final resolution on the very last chord of the piece, but only after a long musical journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.
Very few musicologists or composer through the centuries have thought about the best musical forms for musical adaptations of the Commedia. Only two nineteenth-century musicologists (Bonaventura and Arner) even attempted to theorize about the most appropriate musical form, and their attempt was very limited. Only a few twentieth-century composers (such as Paola or Standford), meanwhile, gave this question any thought before composing their works. |
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