Scrivo In Vento - Elliott Carter

Melodramatist Michael Bonine and flutist Dorothy Wu interpret Elliott Carter's Scrivo in Vento, with recited text of the sonnet by Petrarch which was the inspiration for piece. Live performance in NYC on June 4th, 2008.

Text and Translation:

Beato in sogno et di languir contento,
d'abbracciar l'ombre et seguir l'aura estiva,
nuoto per mar che non à fondo o riva,
solco onde, e 'n rena fondo, et scrivo in vento;

e 'l sol vagheggio, sí ch'elli à già spento
col suo splendor la mia vertú visiva,
et una cerva errante et fugitiva
caccio con un bue zoppo e 'nfermo et lento.

Cieco et stanco ad ogni altro ch'al mio danno
il qual dí et notte palpitando cerco,
sol Amor et madonna, et Morte, chiamo.

Cosí venti anni, grave et lungo affanno,
pur lagrime et sospiri et dolor merco:
in tale stella presi l'èsca et l'amo.


Blessed - in my dreams! - and content to languish, hugging shadows and following summer breezes, I swim in a sea without bottom or bank, I plow the waves and build on sand and write in wind; and I worship the "sun" to the point that my vision is extinguished; and I hunt a fleeting deer with a lame, sick, slow cow. Blind and tired with everything but my own harm, which I keep palpitatingly looking for day and night, I only call on Love, and my lady, and Death. For twenty years of long, tough suffering, I've been dealing in nothing but tears and sighs and pain. That's the unlucky star under which I took the bait and the hook [of my love for Laura, whose name is punned on in the phrase "l'aura estiva" = the summer breeze; the last line is also a pun: "l'amo" means "the hook" and also "I love her"].

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Elliott
• Carter
• Petrarch
• Michael
• Bonine
• Dorothy
• Wu
• classical
• contemporary
• flute
• Scrivo
• in
• Vento

[IFStravinsky]

Yeah, really! Did Carter know about this?

[postocalypso]

it's such a wonderful piece on it's own and she has a pretty sound, why is he talking over it?