Black Stool White Wine

Orphic (2) Argentina

[Orpheus and Eurydice. Max ]

Monteverdi's L'Orfeo . Act IV. Orfeo has failed to move Caronte, but it has stayed and has crossed the Acheron for their own. It appears in Hades, just to see how Proserpina has sided with their cause and try to convince Pluto to return Eurydice to life. Little is resisting God, who dictates his conditions before a chorus of infernal spirits singing in a traditionally homorrítmico and declamatory, the arrival of Mercy to the realm of shadows. Everything happens so very quickly: Orfeo sings with joy and carefree unconscious canzonetta simple ("Qual di te fia Degn honor") that rests on the continued, with brief ritornelli between the verses made by the violins, to the doubt (perhaps also the desire?) assaults him. The music stops abruptly and then the atmosphere changes completely. The psychology of the character is perfectly captured by a recitation choppy and inconsistent, until a noise from outside the scene ended up deciding to turn around and look at the wife. A realejo and voice harsh and uncompromising spirit infernal leave then clear that the divine command has been broken and the two lovers return to strict laws govern Hell. Then is heard for the second and last time at the opera, the voice of Eurydice.

Ahi, troppo dolce e troppo view love!
Così per troppo love, dunque, my lost?
Ed io, misera, forgive
il più poter goder
e di luce e di vita, and forgive you
insieme, più d'ogni ben expensive, or my spouse.

Monteverdi uses the style recitative, with only continuo accompaniment, such as Peri, but everything here is so different ... The way in which the composer mixes pathos with painful ecstasy of love, enhancing both feelings through purely musical resources, clearly indicates the distance between the craftsman of genius. The first cry of Eurydice is sorrow: "Ahi." Orpheus's gaze has pierced, but death or love? Neither the nymph itself means: a fresh view, but bitter, and Monteverdi reinforces this sense of ambiguity through the use of chromaticism (bass and vocals) and the subtle interplay of the madrigals, using dissonance and tunes. The first dissonance, brutal, on "troppo" seems to dissolve in the rise of light on the word "dolce," which sounds almost heavenly an action which only serves to further bitterness to contrast with the return of chromaticism in "troppo love." The rest of the verse slides into the most agonizing pain. A new dissonance on "Così per troppo amor" seems to be suspended in a silence, then sharpened with descending intervals, culminating in a jump of absolute despair on "miserable" to great effect: it is falling into the void of nothingness. However, in the heart of that feeling of anxiety about the permanent loss of light, life, Eurydice has loved this image and makes it clear Monteverdi with an upgrade to its maximum upper register ("ben più expensive "), before imposing the reality ends and the character become resigned to their fate with a sinister final cadence. One of the most prodigious of the entire history of music.
[This text was stolen I there ]