Marta Tacconi - Bernstein, Comitini, Liszt, Malipiero, Poulenc, Tosti: Cantiche (2021)

The publication year of this Da Vinci Classics album is 2021, a year dedicated to Dante Alighieri and to his poetry. This year commemorates the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death, and offers therefore an exceptional occasion for celebrating the unique personality, output and legacy of the “sommo poeta”, the “highest poet”, as he is commonly referred to in Italy.
This album constitutes a very intriguing contribution to the anniversary celebrations. Dante himself was keenly aware of the joint power of music and lyrics. His direct experience of how music and poetry may intertwine with each other is testified in a particular episode of the Purgatorio, the second of the three cantiche in which Dante’s Commedia is divided. Dante and Virgilio (Vergil), his mentor, have just reached the island on which Mount Purgatory stands, and they observe the arrival of a group of recently deceased souls, who are led by an angel to their purification. Among these souls, Dante recognizes his friend Casella, a musician. After failing to embrace him (since a soul is incorporeal), Dante invites his friend to sing for him a song of love, as he used to do during his mortal life. Casella willingly obliges, and begins to sing a canzone, a song, on lyrics composed by Dante himself. Amor che nella mente mi ragiona speaks of the most commonly found subject in a song, i.e. love, even though Dante had earlier affirmed that its verses referred to Lady Philosophy rather than to a real woman. Casella’s singing instantly conquers the ears and hearts of those present: all are enraptured by the beauty of the music and of the words. This moment of respite (all the more welcome in Dante and Virgilio’s case, since they have just exited the nightmarish Inferno) is suddenly interrupted by the appearance of Cato, who rebukes the souls for neglecting their penance in favour of a moment of artistic pleasure. As one commentator of the Commedia, i.e. Claudia Elisabeth Schurr, has acutely pointed out, Cato’s condemnation of the love song should be properly contextualized. It is not that love disappears, or should disappear, from the hearts and souls of the blessed; it is not a question of “no more” love songs, but rater of “not yet”. Love, just as music, is seen very positively by Dante and by Christian theology: they are among the greatest gifts of God, and have an immense potential for saving the human beings. However, both love and music should properly channelled, i.e. oriented to the achievement of holiness and virtue. Otherwise, they may corrupt the soul, as when one loves power or wealth, or when music distracts from “real” life. The souls in Purgatory must learn to “attune” their wills to God’s will, as another commentator, Francesco Ciabattoni, perceptively put it. Only in Paradiso, their purification accomplished, the souls will be able to express themselves in a free – and, at the same time, beautifully ordered – polyphony, mirroring the liberty and peace of a society grounded on God’s love.
The works recorded here are connected, more or less loosely, to this perspective and to Dante’s itinerary in the ultramundane worlds. The works referring most closely to the Commedia are those constituting the Trittico by Danilo Comitini, a composition issued precisely in 2021. The three pieces suggestively propose fragments from each of the three Cantiche in reverse order: Paradiso first, then Purgatorio and Inferno. Even though this sequence has been inverted in turn, for musical reasons, in the album’s tracklist, the composer’s idea is fascinating. The lines by Dante set in Comitini’s Paradiso comprise the longest excerpt from the Commedia proposed here. They constitute the last thirteen lines of the entire poem, ending with the justly famous “l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle” (“Love that moves the sun and the other stars”, referring to God’s Love). The abundance of Dante’s words selected for this piece encourages the composer to propose a recitative-like setting, with long sung phrases which flow generously as concerns both music and text. The numerous timbral effects, both in the vocal and in the piano part, suggest the unearthly transcendence of the poet’s final contemplation of the mystery of God. This epiphany occasionally takes the form of a sudden revelation, musically embodied by a series of contrasting and isolated chords by the piano, building up the fortissimo climax. However, the ultimate experience of God’s love is unfathomable, and leads the poets to an apophatic poetry: this is musically mirrored by the solo voice’s isolation and by the long wordless sections of the solo piano.
The song dedicated to Purgatorio sets to music the farthest fragment from the Paradiso’s conclusion, i.e. the very first lines of Dante’s second cantica. Whereas the preceding song uttered the limitation of the poet’s fantasy to render the mystery of God, here this same poetic power is evoked, and invited to rise again after the desolation and anguish experienced in hell. The poet’s painful effort to reconquer language’s beauty is mirrored by the musical setting, whereby the first words are fragmented, as if they were painfully pronounced by somebody in the process of learning to speak. Later, the evocation of beauty’s return encourages a more fluid declamation, while the penitential dimension of Purgatorio is evoked by the repetition of the word “alza” (“lift up”). The itinerary awaiting Dante and Virgilio, as well as the souls they meet, is hard; the mountain to climb is tall, and punctuated by suffering and grief. Yet, this ascension is also a spiritual one, which lifts the human beings up from the depths of sin and prepares them for the beauty of heaven.
The fragment from Dante’s Inferno sung here is excerpted from the XXVI Canto, whose protagonist is Homer’s hero Ulysses. He is portrayed as burning in the same flame in which his companion Diomedes is also punished. This image powerfully symbolizes their duplicity, for which they are condemned eternally. Duplicity, however, is akin to doubleness, and thus to the alienation of personality so frequently embodying evil in literature (see Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or Gollum and Sméagol to cite but two well known examples). The music once more reflects this disintegration of the self, and the despair it betrays; human words may fail to express the beauty of God, but they lose all significance and meaning when faced with the abyss of hate found in hell.
Dante’s itinerary in the other world has always been interpreted as a symbol for the spiritual quest of humankind, which happens in “this” world. It is thus fitting that the other works recorded here represent a variety of situations, ranging – similar to the Commedia – from the grotesque to the sublime, from the lofty to the ironic, from the holy to desecration.
The rude jokes of the devils in charge of chastising the sinners who are punished for their gluttony find a more refined, but no less ironic, expression, in Leonard Bernstein’s La Bonne Cuisine. These four very short songs set to music four culinary recipes, ranging from desserts such as Plum Pudding and the Turkish pudding called Tavouk Gueneksis to meat dishes, including the “express rabbit” one may cook if unexpected guests arrive suddenly. These songs, composed in 1947, were premiered the following year by Marion Bell accompanied by Edwin MacArthur.
Something akin to the sloth punished in the first cantos of Dante’s Inferno is found in the Banalités on lyrics by Guillaume Apollinaire, set to music by Francis Poulenc. Written in 1940 (so not in a particularly cheerful moment), this cycle opens with Chanson d’Orkenise, a mock-military march set in the odd triple time. Hôtel effectively celebrates laziness, with its dreamy setting and the exaltation of smoking. The depiction of a windy Nordic landscape (actually not that Nordic: “just” a Belgian setting) encourages Poulenc to resort to a wide range of timbral effects; while Voyage à Paris purposefully evokes the triviality of postcards, and of “musical” postcards. Sanglots is the most complex of the five songs, and suggests a dialogue between two people: thus, the idea of duplicity is hinted to once more, symbolizing, also on this occasion, alienation and longing.
If Bernstein’s recipes, just as happened in Dante’s Inferno, deprived language of its expressive power and reduced it to mere phonemes; and if Poulenc’s Banalités employ language in the service of the trivial; then, with D’Annunzio’s poetry, we are invited to climb one further step towards the heights of art. If Dante is referred to as sommo poeta, D’Annunzio is il Vate, the “prophet”, due to the visionary elements of his personality and of his art. Already at just 18, D’Annunzio had collaborated with musician Francesco Paolo Tosti (probably the best known representative of Italian vocal chamber music); the songs recorded here embody the ripest fruit of their cooperation. Whilst at the beginning of their artistic partnership Tosti was the celebrated one and D’Annunzio just a promising young poet, by 1906 D’Annunzio had already acquired lasting fame, and purposefully chose to express an autobiographic content in these touching and languid songs, whose musical component magnificently mirrors the Vate’s aesthetics.
It will be recalled that the last lines of the Commedia were set to music in Comitini’s Paradiso. The poem’s last canto, from which they are excerpted, opens with Dante’s unforgettable prayer to the Virgin Mary: “Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio”. In Inno a Maria Nostra Donna by the fifteenth-century Italian poet Angelo Poliziano we find a similar spiritual tension and a homage to Mary which has many points in common with Dante’s. This poem has been set to music by Gian Francesco Malipiero, who was a passionate rediscoverer of Italy’s musical and artistic past: he is also remembered as the editor of Monteverdi’s monumental opera omnia.
The musical past is also alluded to in the solo piano piece recorded here, i.e. Liszt’s Miserere d’après Palestrina. Even though the original work is actually not by Palestrina, the piece evokes the solemn atmosphere in the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo’s frescos portray the Last Judgement, with vivid depictions of heaven and hell clearly influenced by Dante. Moreover, the Miserere is the single most cited musical Psalm in the Commedia, and thus, we can say, our itinerary with Dante comes to perfection.