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An
Imagined Poussin Triptych a fantasia in three movements for string orchestra
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Born a peasant in Normandy, France, in June of 1594, painter Nicolas Poussin would found and one day be regarded as the greatest practitioner of 17th century French classical style. He studied painting in Paris and perhaps also Rouen. In 1624 he went to Rome, where, except for an 18-month sojourn in Paris from 1640 to 1642, he lived for the rest of his life. His work symbolizes the virtues of logic, order and clarity, and it has influenced the course of French art up to the present day. Poussin's belief that art should appeal to the mind as well as to the eye—that it should present the most noble and serious human situations in an orderly manner and without trivial detail—became the basis of the French academic style of the 17th century. Until the 20th century he remained the dominant inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean August Dominique Ingres, and Paul Cezanne. Among Poussin's contemporaries in artistic life in Italy of the 17th century was composer Claudio Monteverdi. Born in Cremona in 1567, Monteverdi served at the court of the Dukes of Mantua from the early 1590s until 1612, when he moved to Venice as maestro di cappella at the basilica of St. Mark, a position he retained until his death in 1643. And while there is no historical record to suggest that these two great artists, at the pinnacle of their powers working in the same country, only 246 miles apart, ever met, we can nevertheless fairly imagine that they may have. And for the purposes of An Imagined Poussin Triptych, I have done so. This work, in three movements--or panels, really--interweaves my own responses to three great works of Poussin, with the music of Monteverdi . . . specifically the chamber duets, "Vorrei baciarti" (I want to kiss you), and "Ohime, dov'e il mio ben" (Alas, where is my love?). Poussin's Apollo and Daphne, painted in 1625, opens with the resonant tutti chords which will serve as the pillars of this work. As the music unfolds to express this doomed love, and to reflect--as the painting does--the lust and anguish of Apollo's pursuit and Daphne's flight, rejection and ultimate transformation, an unmistakably 21st century harmonic language is subdued by the strains of Monteverdi. Two soloists, a viola and a cello, muted and senza vibrato, sing the commentary of "Vorrei baciarti" in quiet relief. Long, sustained pitches begin to emerge from the orchestra, first floating above and then emerging from within the soloists' voices, surrounding and ultimately overtaking them in a cloud of dissonance which introduces The Adoration of the Golden Calf (1634). This depiction of pagan worship draws from the string orchestra a wide array of otherworldly sounds, including sul ponticello, ricochet col legno, "crushed bow," and "snap pizz". The low strings bow and pluck behind the tailpiece, producing an ethereal, scratching counterpoint, as the music drives toward a frenzied and delirious climax. As suddenly as it began, however, the dance is silenced, and the
tempo unwinds into Monteverdi once again. This time, the persuasive
"Ohime, dov'e il mio ben" Painted in 1646, Parnassus magically portrays the Mount in Southern Greece, north of the Gulf of Corinth, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and a center of musical and poetic inspiration. What better place for Poussin and Monteverdi to conjoin, amid the sonic elements of the 21st century? The melodic and rhythmic fragments of "Ohime, dov'e il mio ben" blend with my own language, and with fragments from the earlier panels, to complete this imagined triptych . . . resolved as a single pitch floating high in the firmament, and across nearly five hundred years.
Geoffrey Gordon
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