Lucia Ronchetti: Anatra al sal

In spite of the legendary experimental excitement of composers such as Monterverdi, the madrigal has, in the 20th century, occasionally been degraded to the level of conservative reflection. For example, in the fifties, as Paul Hindemith formulated the expressive hope towards the reanimation of this musical form, it was understood as the significant expression of an artist, who critically rejected the newest developments of composition and complained of an eminent language deficit. Meanwhile, different vocal works of the last decades have shown that even the revival of the madrigal tradition in composition can be productive without just simply hovering in the safe harbour of the already known or serving nostalgic tendencies. Certainly, the use of affects in composition has, most clearly observed when compared to the serial music of the fifties, gained considerable ground indeed.

 

Lucia Ronchetti’s composition »Anatra al sal«, premiered in 2000 at the Wittener Kammer Musik Tage, is a vital example of this phenomenon. When one searches for historical references in her compositional concept, one quickly discovers within the form the integral madrigal comedy, just as Adriano Banchieri once masterly achieved. In those days, this was also known as the »madrigale rappresentativo« (representative madrigal). In this work by Ronchetti, born in Rome in 1963, »everything is theater« means that every gesture, every musical nuance is a part of an ironically based musical-dramatic process.

 

An all too illustrious and serious theme would be useless here. It is about the art of cooking: five learned masters of this field and an assistant put together a list of meals, and finally agree on the–as already named in the title of the piece–comparably simple »Duck with salt«. In the second section, the preparation is explained. However, there are already conflicts about the sauce in the third section, which culminate in the fourth section, until the successful result of their passionate battling overcomes their arguments in the finale. Inspired by the poetry of the 16th century, the composer subdued the texts of the six vocalists to characteristic limitations: five of them may sing only on one vowel.

 

The composer’s explanation reveals just how much the piece, described as a »harmonic comedy«, is written exactly for the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart: »The deep bass Andreas Fischer portrays the most important and well-known of the cooks. He consults only Latin texts, using only words with the vowel u, and mixes them with short and sarcastic commentary, also in Latin. His assistant, the lyric soprano Susanne Leitz- Lorey, is one of his supporters. She translates the strict commentary of the bass freely and poetically and is the only voice which, due to the necessity to speak, is not restricted to one vowel. Therefore she functions as a connecting thread between all the voices and the vowels, while simultaneously creating the tenor of the activity, as she fuses together all the harmonic developments upon which the fivevoice counterpoint of the cooks is based. The use of mono-vowels underlines the desired comical effect and highlights the special tone color structure of each voice.« A game results out of all this, as one would still like to add, as equally spirited as rich in perspective, along the boundary between concretion and abstraction.

 

(Jörn Peter Hiekel)

Translated by Alexander G. Adiarte