SATB Choir divisi

Music by John Muehleisen (after Monteverdi’s madrigal of the same name)
Poem by Torquato Tasso

Commissioned by Brian Gorelick for Opus 7 Vocal Ensemble, Loren Pontén, Artistic Director.
Dedicated to Dr. Joan Catoni Conlon, whose scholarship and love of Monteverdi provided the inspiration for this work

Duration: 7:15

Audio credits: Opus 7 Vocal Ensemble  – Premiere performance conducted by Loren Pontén in Seattle, WA. May 11, 2024.

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TEXT and TRANSLATION

Non si levava

Non si levava ancor l’alba novella
ne spiegavan le piume
gl’augelli’al novo lume                                         
ma fiammeggiava l’amorosa stella                       
quand’i duo vaghi e leggiadretti amanti                
ch’una felice notte aggiuns’insieme                         
com’acanto si volg’in vari giri                                
divise il novo raggio e i dolci pianti                        
Nell’accoglienz’estreme                                        
mescolavan con baci e con sospiri                          
mille ardenti pensier, mille desire                           
mille voglie non paghe                                         
in quelle luci vaghe                                              
scopria quest’alma innamorata e quella
                                  – Torquato Tasso                  

The new dawn had not yet risen,
nor had the birds spread forth their plumage
to the new light
but the star of love [Venus] was blazing
when the two drowsy and graceful lovers,
whom a happy night had joined together
as Acanthus entwines in various turns,
were separated by the new ray [dawn] and sweet cries.
In their final embraces,
mixed with kisses and with sighs,
a thousand burning thoughts, a thousand desires,
a thousand unfulfilled wishes
in that faint light
revealed two souls in love.
                           – Translation by John Muehleisen 

PROGRAM NOTES

I’ll begin by saying that this is one of the most fascinating projects I’ve ever undertaken. At the suggestion of Dr. Joan Catoni Conlon and at the invitation of Loren Pontén (Artistic Director of Opus 7 Vocal Ensemble), I accepted the challenge of this rather daunting compositional task, something I had never done before in my career. So, what was that task? Dr. Conlon—who is a noted Monteverdi scholar and who has written one of THE books on interpreting the composer’s work (“Performing Monteverdi: A Conductor’s Guide”)—suggested to Loren several years ago that he ask me to compose a contemporary counterpart to one of Monteverdi’s many madrigals using the same text as he used and paying homage to Monteverdi’s compositional approach to the text and to his musical style. Not knowing much more about Monteverdi than I could remember from music history classes in university, I began listening to a wide range of Monteverdi madrigals across his nine books of madrigals (#9 being published posthumously) and reading about Monteverdi’s style as it evolved across the various books of madrigals, which spanned the publication of Book One in 1587 (when the composer was only 20 years of age) through the publication of Book Eight in 1638, a span of more than 50 years (when he would have been about 70 years old). Needless to say, Dr. Conlon’s book was key to my growing understanding, as were numerous articles I read. In addition, Joan suggested several madrigals to me that she thought would be good to set, and I finally settled on “Non si levava…”, the first madrigal from Book 2 (1590).

The poem, by the noted 16^th century Italian poet, Torquato Tasso, is one of many Tasso poems that Monteverdi set in his madrigals. As Dr. Conlon says in her book, “The text…may be the most rapturous Tasso text that Monteverdi ever set. Extraordinarily expressive lines describe the lovers awakening, their sweet laments [at having to part at dawn], and their “entwining like acanthus.” The sounds of the text themselves…also convey ardent desire.” Accordingly, Monteverdi uses numerous musical devices in his vivid text painting. Strucurally, this madrigal “introduces with its da capo form new structural concepts: two opening melodic motives, recapitulate at the end of the madrigal, a device not seen again until Book 4.”

One more aspect of Monteverdi’s compositional style is important to note here, and that is the division of his books of madrigals into two groups: Books 1–3 and Books 4–8. Furthermore, each one of these groups fell into two very different stylistic periods: Prima Prattica and Seconda Prattica {First Practice and Second Practice, also known as Stile Antico (“Old Style”) and Stile Moderno (“Modern Style”), respectively. Prima Prattica dominated compositional styles of text setting until around 1600, which the Seconda Prattica began to be increasingly dominant. In the earlier 16^th century style, compositional technique—specifically the more conservative and controlled contrapuntal techniques of Palestrina—dominated the text, while in the more modern style of the early 17^th century, the text dominated the music and influenced the choice of compositional and musical devices that more directly convey the meaning and emotion of the text, while “breaking the rules” of the closely controlled compositional devices associated with the earlier style.

After all the reading and studying of the madrigals, Monteverdi’s compositional styles, and my selection of Non si levava… as the madrigal I would set, I was left with the following daunting question: “Now what do I do?” After studying the text and music of Non si levava, as well as Monteverdi’s compositional style in detail, here’s what I decided to do:

• Preserve the structure of Non si levava as much as possible, including the da capo repetition of the opening music at the end.
• Use Monteverdi’s own melodies, pitch material, and rhythmic structure as much as possible so that the listener can hear musical elements of the original madrigal echoed in my new setting, but rather than simply sounding like a 17^th century imitation of a 16^th Monteverdi madrigal, I wanted it to sound contemporary, 21^st century, as if it could have been composed in our own time, without being based on earlier music. The effect at times might be likened to hearing Monteverdi through a veil or through the fog of time, echoing across the centuries.
• Transform Monteverdi’s Stile Antico approach to this particular madrigal into a Stile Moderno approach in my setting. In other words, I would apply to Monteverdi’s madrigal and to Tasso’s text the techniques of the Seconda Prattica, in which text and affect (emotion) and text painting generate the musical choices.
• Base my musical setting on my own interpretation of Tasso’s poem and on the images in that poem, which highly influenced my musical choices. For example, in the opening section of my setting, which sets the opening line of the poem, I preserved Monteverdi’s own three statements of the line and corresponding musical material, but my setting creates a vivid sonic image of the lovers in their bedchamber with only the faintest glow of pre-dawn light illuminating the scene: Non si levava ancor l’alba novella (“The new dawn had not yet risen”).

I loved the challenges and opportunities of this project, and I hope to have the chance to write another work likes this. I also hope that my first attempt at this both pays homage to Tasso and Monteverdi’s earlier works and provides a satisfying experience for modern day listeners to my own work, which I hope will stand on its own in the way that it brings Tasso’s text alive to 21^st century audiences. I want to offer my deep gratitude once again to both Loren Pontén and to Dr. Joan Catoni Conlon, who, incidentally, was not only the Director of Choral Activities at both the University of Washington and at University of Colorado, but was also my Graduate Advisor at the UW when I started my Master of Music degree in Composition in 1980. I am indebted to you both for inviting me on what has turned out to be one of the most fascinating musical journeys of my compositional career, but which has ignited in me a new-found interest in the works of Monteverdi and in the unique musical transition from the 15^th to the 16^th century from the Renaissance period of music into the Early Baroque.And, finally, this project would not have been possible without a generous donation from Brian Gorelick, former Director of Choral Ensembles at Wake Forest Univeristy, who funded the commissioning of this work for Opus 7.

NOTE: Performing this work in conjunction with Monteverdi’s setting of this text would doubtless yield additional insight into the relationship between the two works and is recommended to conductors who program this work. — John Muehleisen

(Conductors should feel free to use whatever information provided above that they think would be most meaningful to their audiences.)