SEMF 2013 Festivalprogram (pdf) - Sveriges Radio

Tisdag 4 juni
Tuesday 4 June
Onsdag 5 juni
Wednesday 5 June
Torsdag 6 juni
Thursday 6 June
chockerande effekt. Från den första madrigalboken, som präglas
av ungdomlighet, till den mognad man finner i den femte boken,
har Monteverdi ständigt omdefinierat sin relation till poeten för
att slutligen blanda musik och text i den dramatiska perfektion
som är Orfeo. Opera i sin sannaste form föddes, men dess källa
madrigalen skulle aldrig komma att återfå sin ställning.
EFTER EN TEXT AV PAUL AGNEW
After an 11 year wait between the publications of his Third Book of
Madrigals (1592) and his Fourth (1603), Monteverdi does not hesitate
to publish his Fifth Book only two years later in 1605. The speed
of publication of this new collection is explained by the fact that much
of the material contained in both the Fourth and Fifth Books had
circulated in manuscript form throughout the previous decade. This
makes the Fifth Book a curious compendium of early and more recent
compositions, some dating back to the mid 1590s, others clearly
demonstrations of his most modern techniques.
les arts florissants, foto: marie-emmanuelle brétel
The defining event in Mantua between the publication of the Third
Book in 1592 and the Fifth Book in 1605 was perhaps the performance
of Guarini’s epic poem ’Il Pastor Fido’ in 1598 – a performance
that had a strong and lasting influence on the court’s cultural life. In
Monteverdi’s Fifth Book there are no less than 16 settings of Guarini.
More than half the book is concerned directly with passages from ’Il
Pastor Fido’. Monteverdi’s dramatic instincts have developed to a new
height, and the dramatic force, perhaps influenced by the experience
of the 1598 staging, has gained a new intensity which will ultimately
be perfected in the extraordinary five-part setting of Ariadne’s lament
that opens the Sixth Book (1614).
Already in 1607, however, Monteverdi will change the face of music
history with his creation of ‘Orfeo’. Through the intensity of his
research into the dramatic potential of harmony to portray the most
intricate of emotions within the text in his Fifth Book of Madrigals,
Monteverdi is able to produce a work of great subtlety and power,
transforming monody from its dilettante beginnings into an art of
shocking impact. Monteverdi has served an unconscious apprenticeship
from his youthful First Book of Madrigals until his mature Fifth
Book, constantly redefining his relationship with the poet, finally to
blend music and word into the dramatic perfection that is Orfeo.
Opera in its truest form is born, but, inevitably, the madrigal, which
has been its source, will never recover.
FROM A TEXT BY PAUL AGNEW
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