harpsichord

Petrarch’s Canzone No. 129, “Di Pensier in Pensier”, is one of the greatest poems of the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance. In it the poet laments the absence of his love, Laura, in imagery based on the rockstrewn and windswept landscape of Southern France, a landscape I also know well. The music setting makes no attempt to imitate the music contemporaneous to
the poet, but it does have historical roots. I have been fascinated by the music of the early seventeenth century, a time when modern tonality was being invented, but in which the rules were not so well “known” that the results were predictable. The surprising and fresh harmonic progressions of this era continue to inspire me. And so, in this work, while there is much that is chromatic and very much of this time, there is also a strong tonal underpinning, a basically triadic language (albeit extended), a love to ornament, and an attachment to emotional “affect” in accordance with principles of the early Baroque. As such, it is an homage to the great dramatic scena of the period.
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With personal and professional ties to Potsdam, the composer was inspired as much by resonance surrounding Sans Souci as by the lyric beauty of the Viola d'amore. This two music work is a duralistic reflection on the earthly/ heavenly continuum of light and shadow, sorrow and joy,as intermingled as the continuum of colors in a rainbow.