Music of Dante

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT_gH4lCkAo

http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/6/60/IMSLP46657-PMLP22465-Liszt-DanteSym.Violin1.pdf

http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/7/7d/IMSLP20417-PMLP22465-Liszt_Werke_-_Dante_Symphonie.pdf

Liszt, a French composer, wrote a symphony inspired by the Divine Comedy and used the sections of the Comedy as dividers for the movements. I will be talking about the second movement of the symphony, Purgatorio. 

The movement begins with the faint sounds of the strings playing eighth notes (in open fifths) and then we hear the oboe softly coming in with melody. As the oboe continues, it starts to crescendo and that slowly decrescendo (hairpins).  This highlights the beginning of Canto I when Dante talks about the dead poetry rising up again in lines 7-10. What Dante meant in these lines is that poetry and other forms of beauty are dead in the Inferno and only exist within Purgatorio and possibly alluding to it existing in Paradise. Liszt uses his composition has a form of poetry.  The rising melody from the Oboe signifies the great emergence of the extravagant beauty music displays. Beauty represents something that comes from God; the beauty of nature. Liszt incorporates the beauty of God through his composition in which the notes Liszt puts on paper come indirectly from God.

            Within the violin I score, Liszt labels a section, poco a poco piu di moto, meaning move with more joy little by little. It seems like the section is similar to description of brotherly embrace between Sordello of Mantua and Virgil in canto 6. At first, Virgil and Sordello are not immediately joyful towards each other, but as they gradually begin to engage in conversation, they find out that they are from the same place (Mantua) and thus achieve the highest amount of joy. Dante talks about how this brotherly embrace is non-existent in Italy and can be contrasted to the connotation the music brings. By placing this section in D major, the notes present a much happier tune than by placing the section in D-flat major or a different minor. That is contrast to Mantua and Italy. D major is more embracing and D-flat major or a minor is sadder, deeper and possibly negative (depending on the notes if their accidental or not). 

Doré, Depictions of Purgatorio, Cantos 6-8

In this blog I examine the artwork inspired by Cantos 6-8 of Purgatorio, where Virgil meets Sordello, and Virgil, Dante, and Sordello visit the Valley of Rulers. The images are all available at the Dante Worlds website in Purgatorio, in the section "Valley of Rulers":  http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/purgatory/02valleyofrulers.html#audio.  I examined the following images:

1. John Flaxman’s Sordello
2. Gustave Doré’s Sordello
3. Gustave Doré’s Valley of Rulers
4. Gustave Doré’s Angels and Serpent

The first two paintings depict Virgil meeting Sordello. In the Flaxman painting Virgil and Sordello embrace standing. In the second painting (Doré), Sordello, on his knees, grasps Virgil’s cloak as if weeping with joy when he learns that Virgil is from Mantua – before knowing that it is Virgil. In the corner other souls look on with a perplexed stare, seemingly at Dante who stands behind watching the embrace. Their expression of wonder seems to evoke the text throughout Purgatorio that describes the souls’ amazement that Dante is still alive. Both images include the embrace and Dante nearby, but the Doré seems to capture the emotion of the encounter much better than the Flaxman image. In the Flaxman there is no background, no shading, little detail, and the figures seem rigid. In Doré’s image there is a rich background with great cliffs that rise vertically to the edge of the painting, leafless scraggily trees, and a cloudy sky above misty cliffs in the distance, all evoking the mood and feel of the text, as well as specific features that Dante describes (such as the cliffs). The structure of Purgatory (mountainous, steep, marked with cliffs, etc.) is described in several locations before this point, for example, Cantos 4.35, 5.86, and 6.47. In Canto 5 line 86 the mountain is described as “lofty” and Doré’s images portray a certain loftiness, especially through shading, light, high peaks, clouds, and angels.

The next image (No. 3) is Doré’s depiction of the valley of rulers. This is my favorite picture of them all. In this image Doré uses shading and other effects to create rays of sunlight and flowers, and generally depict the beauty of the valley that Dante describes in the text – all in sepia tones – although the setting here is more like a glade than a valley (a clearing surrounded by woods). The sunlight streams in from the right on the souls sitting there, and the green where they are gathered seems to shimmer with the same effect invoked by the text in Canto 7 lines 73-78 – “Gold and fine silver, cochineal and white lead, / Indian amber bright and clear, fresh emerald at the / instant it is split, / each would be surpassed in color by the grass / and flowers placed within that fold, as the lesser is / surpassed by the greater.”

Image 4 is a further example of the effects and devices Doré uses to illustrate the text. In image 4 Doré depicts the Angels guarding the valley with large wings and flowing robes. They are placed above the clouds, one behind the other, one higher than the other, and both angled upwards at about 30-45 degrees with the horizontal. Dante and Virgil are mere silhouettes below looking up, and the snake in the foreground is in a “supine position”, seemingly on its back looking up at the Angels. Thus there seems to be a hierarchy of all things – divine power, which is above the heavens, which are above man, which is above the snake. All are focused on the angels.

In examining Doré’s paintings one gets the feeling of the text – the “loftiness” (Canto 5.86), the drama, the mood, sometimes melancholy, sometimes contemplative, sometimes joyful. The common thread that seems to link these effects together is not only in the figures/features themselves – with their hierarchy and positioning – but also in the detail, shading, contrasts, and light effects Doré uses to highlight his figures and re-create the feeling of the text.

Water themes in Liszt’s Dante Symphony

Perhaps one of the greatest works of art inspired by Dante’s Divine comedy is Liszt’s Symphony S. 109, the “Dante Symphony.”  I was able to find a full recording of the symphony on YouTube, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

The music raises the same feelings raised by the text itself.  The symphony opens with a series of dark, foreboding harmonic movements and drum rolls.  The trombones and tubas play the first notes (see full score).  The music is in D minor, but invokes frequent chromaticism and is “tonally ambiguous” (Wikipedia article, “Dante Symphony”).  This creates a feeling of imbalance and tension, which reflects the text of Inferno.  The rising and falling of the first lines of the symphony, followed by drum rolls seem to evoke waves crashing on a shore, receding, and crashing again.  Dante makes this water theme explicit in Inferno, and especially Canto 1 of Purgatorio.  Canto 1 opens, “To run through better waters the little ship of / my wit now hoists its sails, leaving behind it a sea / so cruel, and I will sing of that second realm where the / human spirit purges itself and becomes worthy to / ascend to Heaven” (Purgatorio 1.1-6).  The first movement with its crashing instrumentation seems to embody the “sea so cruel” of Inferno. 

The tension and drama of the first movement build and the music becomes faster and faster, supposedly as Dante and Virgil pass through the gate in Canto 3 of Inferno.  A few words jump to mind from Canto 3 that match the music: the “loud wailing…diverse languages…[and] accents of anger…made a tumult…like…sand when a whirlwind blows” (ll. 25-30).

There are endless motifs and representations of the text in the music.  To further illustrate the water themes I will skip ahead to the 21 min. 33 sec. mark of the video.  The second movement (“Purgatorio”) of the symphony represents a turning point.  It begins very quietly with the strings playing two notes of an open fifth repeatedly.  Two things are notable here: the strings, more peaceful instruments by nature than the brass of the opening to the first movement, reflect the peace of Purgatorio as compared to Inferno.  The open fifth contrasts with the chromaticisms and tri-tones of the first movement, which in medieval times was a sign of Satan in music.  The major fifth was considered to be a “perfect interval.”  The music is like a subtle ripple on a body of water.  Out of this sounds a French horn, and then an Oboe, softly.  The repeated open fifths seem to reflect the “better waters” of line one of Purgatorio.

Links:

Full Score, Dante Symphony

http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/7/7d/IMSLP20417-PMLP22465-Liszt_Werke_-_Dante_Symphonie.pdf

Wikipedia Article, Dante Symphony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Symphony

LISZT, Dante Symphony, S.109

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hko1TNkgUUE

Dante in Milton's Paradise Lost: Inferno

Link:  In RR stacks at the B level.

In Book One of Paradise Lost, Milton describes Hell as the place “where peace / and rest can never dwell.”  This line echoes the tempestuous chaos that pervades Circle 2. Although the restlessness is not as vivid as Inferno, the rebel angels experience this restlessness all the same since they do very human things as Satan flies to Earth.  Furthermore, Satan agonizes over the despair and wrath that hound him.  Milton's portrayal of Satan combines the sins and punishments of Inferno: the transformation into snakes at the end resembles the bolgia of thieves in that Satan robs the first people of innocence, sword of Michael in the war resembles the schismatics in that Satan separated Heaven's angels and suffered and healed the cuts from the sword, and the internal tempest that never stops is the lust that birthed Sin.  Dante's Satan resides at the bottom of Hell, and both Milton and Dante recognize that all sin came from Satan.

Milton’s Satan, as the Great Deceiver, is similar to the beast of fraud Geryon. Neither flies straight to their destination, but each take a circuitous route.  This nonlinear movement suggests the circuitous rhetoric a deceiver makes, but the eventual arrival indicates a strong goal or ambition that lies underneath the speech. In Book 4, the angels who sided with God can see through Satan's false light, revealing him to be a foul creature of Hell.  In addition, Satan is totally oblivious to his real nature, vainly concerned with his appearance.   Satan's cluelessness represents the power of fraud to deceive the deceiver himself.  As Human Reason, Virgil sees through Geryon and positions himself between the Geryon's stinger and Dante to protect him.

Milton attacks the powerful emptiness of rhetoric through Satan’s extraordinary persuasiveness to get his evil way.  Similarly, Dante attacks empty rhetoric through Ulysses’s story as he coaxes his companions to head into folly.  Both authors caution against following the literal and for finding the substance behind the words, though for different reasons.  In Milton's time, the government censored material to suppress rebellion as well as to keep pure minds.  However, Milton argued that censorship only coddles minds, leaving them unable to think independently.  Those with strong minds will naturally choose the good and reject the bad.  For Dante, empty rhetoric can simulate virtue, and too many people fall for guile such as Guido da Montefeltro who believed in Boniface's reassurance.  Both men, in short, argue for people to think independently that would naturally draw them to God as the ultimate good.